Catacombs

                                                         RANKINGS  

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1. Faerie Mound of Dragonkind - Score = 5.6   Tier = OK

Attempts to Beat: 6

Pumped to start a new gamebook series as always, I find this first entry in the Catacombs series from authors Jean Blashfield and James M. Ward to be......middling at best. The story does not open in the strongest manner to say the least, as it is related to us that a magical "faerie mound", which appears once every thousand years, is scheduled to materialize very shortly within a nearby forest. What does this matter to us? Well, legend has it that the mound has the ability to grant fantastic gifts, and your reason for wanting to go there will depend upon which character you choose to play as. You are then provided a choice between two different heroes, and must select who you wish to use, with no character generation involved, as each hero's starting stats are pre-determined. You can either play as Brennies the Fighter, with his high initial Life Point total and powerful damage inflicting sword, or you can play as Riderch the Bard, who while coming with a lower initial Life Point total and weaker sword, also has his magical pan-pipes which gives him a chance to charm an enemy (and grant an auto-win) before every combat. As mentioned, the motive for entering the mound is different for each, with Brennies' quest involving the search for the magical dust of a dead faerie king, which the wizards of his realm say is the only thing that can save Brennies' own lord, who is currently on his deathbed. Riderch on the other hand wishes to enter the mound in a search for......a new harp. Errr, ok. One of these quests sure seems a lot more noble than the other, so I decided to try my hand at this adventure by playing as Brennies.  

The combat here works by having you and your opponent take turns striking at one another (with you always rolling first), but uses a single d12 instead of two d6's. You are also given the numbers both of you need to roll under in order to score a hit (looking up your given enemy's stats on the creature table in the back of the book), which might vary for you depending upon your chosen weapon, and are also told how many Life Points to deduct should either of you strike successfully. Unfortunately, I think they made Brennies a bit too powerful here, as he requires only a 10 or lower to hit thanks to his sword, Heartseeker, which also deals out 6 points of damage per hit. I get that he is supposed to be the greatest warrior in the realm and all that, but I found myself dispatching even the most powerful enemies I came across without too much bother, and never came close to dying due to Life Point loss. As if that wasn't enough, you are also provided with 3 special items before you set out, which include: a healing potion; a ring which negates the first point of damage received in a fight; and a magical sphere which allows you to re-do one unsuccessful combat (and which I never needed to use). The difficulty here then comes from avoiding the random instant deaths scattered throughout the book, of which you are likely to encounter several of before succeeding. (The most frustrating of these likely being the one in the very first section where you are given 3 options, with one of them leading to automatic failure. C'mon!)

The adventure also includes a Lone Wolf style inventory system, allowing you to carry 3 potions, 2 weapons, 3 rings, and 3 "other" items, which can be anything not included in the other categories. I initially thought this was great and could make for some interesting decisions, but then found that it doesn't play out that way, because while there are many different items to find within the mound, a great deal of them are interchangeable or have no real use at all. All of your character's stats and inventory slots (along with his portrait) are shown on bookmarks included with the book, much like as was done in the other TSR published series such as "Marvel Super Heroes" and "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons". In this vein, it must be said that the production value of this book is great. The large format with beautiful cover, the solid and detailed bookmarks, the in-depth creature tables included at the back, and most of all the wonderful interior illustrations certainly make it appear that no expense was spared in the publishing of this book. It's a shame then that the gameplay doesn't come close to matching the first impression I had from this adventure. This book falls into the category of adventures where after my first 10 minutes of playing, I found myself thinking "this is fantastic!", only to then have the cold hard truth smack me in the face over the next hour or so as reality set in. 

In addition to the bookmarks provided for both Brennies and Riderch, there is also a bookmark included for a character only called "The Elf". Before you begin the quest, you are instructed to insert The Elf bookmark between two pages at random. Should you then turn to either of these two pages later on as you travel through the mound, you must then consult the instructions on The Elf bookmark to see what his disposition is towards you, which will determine what will happen next. There are twelve different states of mind an Elf could be in when you encounter him, ranging from "joyful" on the positive end, all the way up to "enraged" on the negative side. If you happen to catch him in a more positive state of mind, he will likely just send you on your way, perhaps giving you a gift in the process. But should you be unlucky and find him in a more negative state, he might require you to give him something, or you might need to even fight him outright. In either case, once he is dealt with, you then return to the section you were on and continue as normal, while also re-inserting The Elf bookmark again between another two pages at random. I'm a bit torn on the implementation of this mechanic. On the one hand I appreciated the tension of never knowing when you were going to run into this guy, but then this is offset by having at least half of his states of mind leading to nothing of note or consequence. There is a kernel of a really good idea here though which I hope to see done better in the future, something of which I could say about much of this book.  

Speaking of good ideas which could have been implemented better, the means by which you travel through the faerie mound (which looks like a small hill from the outside, but once inside turns into one of those "other planes of existence" type of deals) is based upon the illustrations, with each full page picture showing a location within the mound, such as a forest, a riverside, or a tomb. Various items contained within the illustration are listed beside it, and once you have dealt with the denizen of that location (either by talking or fighting), you are free to examine any of the items listed. Of course, the book would still have worked without the illustrations by just providing the list of items and have you pick from that, but they add a wonderful level of immersion and atmosphere thanks to how excellently they are drawn. When first entering the faerie mound, you immediately encounter the faerie king, and tell him of your quest. He agrees to help you and let you leave with the magical dust you are seeking, but only if you can retrieve his favorite lamp, which he claims the faerie queen has stolen from him. They are clearly NOT a happy couple, and you learn that they each have their own distinct realm within the mound. Taking the king up on his offer, you also eventually learn that you will need to find 4 magical items in order to pass safely into the realm of the queen, and you thus spend the first half of the adventure searching throughout the king's realm for these items. This initially sounds like it might be somewhat difficult, but it turns out that the 4 required items are not specific. For instance, one of the items you need is a key, but any key you can find will do. And as there are keys, rings, and potions strewn all over the place, you shouldn't have too much trouble finding what you need. Once you get the required items and then locate the area with the portal to the queen's realm, you meet her and she tells you that she will allow you to take the lamp should you be able to find it. You then explore the queen's realm in much the same manner, this time searching for both the lamp and the magical dust that you came there for. Once you do this and then make your way back to the king's realm (which I thought was one of the trickier aspects of the adventure), he allows you to leave with the magical dust so that you can save your lord. 

Far and away the biggest problem here is the exploration of the faerie mound itself, which is obviously a key component of the book. I never felt in the least bit like I was exploring, because you are constantly being magically transported from one illustration (location) to the next, with seemingly no rhyme or reason to it. You can walk down a stairway in a banquet hall and find yourself outside in a forest. Or you can tame a horse and ride it down a path to exit one area, only to be sent back to that same banquet hall with your horse having disappeared altogether with no explanation. Even exploring the locations themselves can be full of pitfalls, as merely inspecting some objects can see them transport you unwillingly somewhere else, with no context as to where you now are in relation to where you just left. The adventure also suffers badly from the "carousel problem" as I think I will begin to call it. This is where you find yourself going around and around in circles, entering the exact same rooms over and over again on the same playthrough. The book itself even seems to know this is a problem, as each new illustration contains a note that says something along the lines of "if you have been here before.....", which you will almost always find yourself having to do at least once for each location, because there is no indication given when you pick an exit from an illustration as to where it may possibly lead. Entering the same locations over and over also causes the obvious continuity problems from visiting places you have already been, and in most cases the book tries to get around this by telling you that everything has been magically reset from the last time you were there. Using magic as the explanation for items returning to their previous locations is at least something I suppose, and is more than some other gamebooks with similar problems have provided, but it doesn't explain why I can have the exact same conversations with the creatures in the illustrations that I had the previous time, word for word. (Wouldn't I say something different the second, third, or fourth time through?)

       

That being the case, at roughly the half-way point of the adventure, something happened that caught me totally off guard and had me thinking the book might be on the way to greatly redeeming itself. Once you acquire the items you need in order to be able to pass safely into the faerie queen's realm, she rewards you by turning you into a wizard! This happens regardless of if you had been playing as the fighter or the bard, and comes complete with a very cool (or so I thought) spell selection system. You are provided a list of 19 different one-use spells at 4 different levels of power, and get to select a certain number from each level, and you then cross them off as you employ them. Unfortunately, I only found one of the spells to be of any real use. This is because in addition to the spells, you are also provided with a magical staff that contains 10 charges. When in combat, if you choose to fire a blast from the staff, it automatically hits and does 6 points of damage. I found the 10 charges that the staff contained to be more than enough, especially when avoiding combat is always the best option here, and the majority of the creatures you might find yourself in a fight with are not particularly tough opponents. This also makes the combat spells that you could have chosen, which make up the majority of the list, a bit pointless. Even several of the spells that were not combat related, such as "Leap" or "Open", I never came across a place to use them. 

Another pitfall here is that there a lot of sections to this book, although it's tough to say exactly how many because a total number isn't given. Instead, each page has its own section coding just for that page. For example page 135 might have 10 sections, with the sections on the page being labelled as 135A, 135B, ........135J. If I had to guess, I would say there might be 800 or more sections here total, and by itself would also say that is a good thing ,as it provides more game design opportunities. The downside here though is that because so many of these sections are very short, this leads to a heck of a lot of rapid page flipping. This is annoying enough in a regular sized gamebook, but the large format of this book makes this experience even worse. The many short and sparse sections also don't do much for atmosphere, but thank goodness the illustrations are present to take care of that (which was probably the idea). There are also some weak attempts at what I suppose is meant to be humour, but which for me fell totally flat. For example you can find yourself meeting William Shakespeare at a banquet, and can't help but think that this young man has a bright future. In another strange moment, you can be briefly teleported to the deck of a pirate ship where a young girl is being made to walk the plank while a young boy flies through the air fighting the pirates, so I guess we were briefly in Neverland, even though no one is ever actually named. In addition, just about everything in the adventure is capable of thought and speech, including objects such as gems and mushrooms (and there must have been a lot of magic mushroom eating going on within the mound if the encounters are any indication). So in other words, this is one of those "anything goes" adventures where logic can be thrown out the window, with anything capable of happening at any time, although it does at least keep a faerie theme mostly throughout, with many encounters involving sprites, pixies, mermaids and the like.    

Ranking: One of those efforts where in theory it sounds great, but in practice, not so much. And while it's not outright bad, it has a lot of problems. The plot is very weak, the construction of the faerie mound is incredibly random with barely any internal logic, and the amount of sheer page flipping can reach laborious levels. That said ,the illustrations are beautiful and a joy to pore over, and are easily the best part of the experience. I dearly hope that at least one of the books in this series can capitalize on this style and format to provide a great adventure. Unfortunately, it was "not to be" for the first book (friggin Shakespeare......).  

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2. Gnomes-100, Dragons-0 - Score = 7.7   Tier = Good

Attempts to Beat: 16

Phew! This adventure sure required a lot of playtime in order to complete, but for the most part it was worth it, and this is one of the better improvements I have seen from the first book in a series to the second. This also must be the most unusually titled gamebook I have played yet, and not surprisingly with a title like that, this is a comedy gamebook all the way. This adventure is set in the Dragonlance universe, and sees us playing as a newly accredited baker called Rye (yeesh) who lives on the Isle of Sancrist located on the world of Krynn. Rye is down in the dumps as the story opens, because he has been unable to find employment in his chosen profession. Visiting an inn one day to drown his sorrows, he overhears a group of gnomes in a corner discussing the art of baking, so sits down at their table in hopes of finding work. The gnomes do indeed have a job for Rye, and assuming it to be a position requiring his baking skills, he quickly signs a contract the gnomes put in front of him without even bothering to read it. That will prove to be a foolish move, as while travelling to the gnomes home of Mount Nevermind, Rye learns that the contract he signed actually requires him to lead the gnomish forces in defense of their mountain home from a looming invasion by the Queen of Darkness and her army of dragons and draconians! It seems the gnomes had travelled to Rye's hometown to find a human, any human, to lead their forces. Not wishing to renege on the contract he signed, Rye inquires how he is expected to defeat such a powerful force, and is told that within Mount Nevermind are many different items, both mechanical and magical, that would be of great use in repelling the Queen's attack. So, we are given the task of exploring the mountain and bringing out as many of these useful items as we can find before the Dragonarmy arrives. Even the gnomes realize however that such a weak and puny human such as ourselves would stand little chance considering the many dangers within the mountain, so they outfit us with a set of power armour (as depicted on the cover), which reminded me greatly of the power armour you can obtain in the Fallout video game series. This armour allows us to take a great deal of damage, and also to deal it out as well. Thus so equipped, we are ready to set forth into the mountain to see what helpful items we can locate. 

There must be more mechanics at work here than any gamebook I have played yet (which makes sense in a way, as I believe this book also has more sections than any I have played yet), so I think I will describe the main features and mechanics of the adventure one by one below:

Mountain Chambers

So the real meat of the adventure is obviously in the exploration of the many chambers of the mountain, each with its own layout and occupants. There is a list provided to you when you begin the quest informing you of the name the gnomes have given to each chamber, and this usually provides a hint as to what lies within. For example, if you choose to visit the chamber called "The Nest", you can expect to find some type of bird creature, or should you wish to explore "The Undead" you are likely in for a tough time. Then there are other chambers such as "The Library" and "The Bakery" which turn out to be exactly what they say they are. Each of these chambers are mini-adventures unto themselves, with various individuals inside them that can be either friendly or not, require you to aid them or perhaps require you to fight them, and many of the situations you walk into are sometimes amusing, but always entertaining. One of the chambers even contains a fully fleshed out maze complete with roaming minotaur that takes up a good number of sections, with each section providing you with a "grid map" piece that you are meant to plot out on graph paper. And while the gnomes may be geniuses when it comes to building machines, in almost all other instances they are scatter-brained goofballs who lack social skills and whose inventions often end up running amok. Not all of the chambers contain gnomes however, and you are warned before you begin that there are pockets of evil creatures who have taken up residence within some areas of the mountain. It's not all doom and gloom though, because in addition there is the odd helpful human here and there, not to mention a group of amazons, that have also found themselves inside the mountain for various reasons, and this helps to add some nice variety so that the player is not stuck encountering nothing but gnomes (although they are obviously still quite plentiful). 

As with the previous book, each chamber is represented with a full page illustration detailing exactly what it contains and what is currently going on at your moment of entrance. And while these illustrations are very good and add nicely to the atmosphere, I didn't find them quite as impressive as the drawings from the first book. Your job then is to explore as many chambers as you can, searching for any items (which include machines constructed by the gnomes and also magical artefacts) that can aid you in the final battle when the Dragonarmy arrives. Upon discovery of a useful item, it will be revealed to you what it does, and they can vary in usefulness from "add +3 to your Defense score in the final battle" to "eliminate all Green Dragons from the battlefield". It's very hard to know just how useful anything is until you actually get to see the final battle first, and until you do so you will have no clue as to how well you are doing and if you are "ready" or not. I also found it strange the means by which you have all the items you find delivered to the battlefield, as it is explained in the opening that you have a crew of 68 gnomes that travel through Mount Nevermind with you, and will immediately carry back anything you deem useful. These 68 gnomes almost never say anything the whole quest, and it is clear many times that you are supposed to be alone, so I'm not sure if the authors forgot about them or if they are meant to be waiting just outside whatever chamber you happen to enter. That all said, this mountain exploration is the majority of the adventure, and thankfully is a lot of fun and a big positive of the book. 

The Gnomeflinger

Probably my biggest problem with the previous book was the amount of circling around among the same rooms that became a part of every playthrough. This is corrected in this adventure and then some by providing a completely different means of traveling from chamber to chamber. When you first begin your quest, you are provided an illustration of the side of Mount Nevermind, which shows all the various cave openings which lead to the different chambers within the mountain. There are 25 different chambers that you can choose to visit in any order you wish right from the start, and this is done by first selecting which chamber you would like to head for, then getting inside the Gnomeflinger. This device is essentially a giant catapult operated by the gnomes, who attempt to "fling" you towards your desired chamber. You are not necessarily guaranteed to make it there however, and must make a roll to see if the gnomes were successful in their flinging of you. Should the roll be successful, you arrive at the desired chamber, but should it be unsuccessful, you find yourself flung into a different chamber lower on the mountain (should you fail the roll, you go to the chamber immediately below and to the right of the one you were aiming for, which is supposed to represent the gnomes botching it and undershooting you). Time plays a factor in this as well, with the required roll becoming more difficult depending upon how many days have passed, as the gnomes become more anxious and less reliable the closer the Dragonarmy gets to Mount Nevermind. Should you be unsuccessful, you can chose to sacrifice half a day to return to the Gnomeflinger and try again, or you can attempt to make it to your desired chamber on foot, as many of the chambers have their own tunnels and doorways within them that lead to other areas of the mountain (and there are some hidden chambers that can only be accessed this way). When you are ready to leave a chamber, you can either take one of these exits, or you can return to the Gnomeflinger by the use of vents located all throughout the mountain, which are described as being akin to giant slides which will take you back to the Gnomeflinger. I am a big fan of this type of hub section, and the idea of being able to travel to any chamber at any time (except for the hidden ones of course) greatly appeals, as once you have identified which chambers hold the most important items, you need not have to spend time slogging through all the same areas over and over. Although it can get frustrating if you are trying to get to a particular chamber and the Gnomeflinger roll keeps failing you. Still, this is a vast improvement over the travel in book 1 and one of the better mechanics of this adventure.

Time limit

With the Queen of Darkness prepping her Dragonarmy for invasion, you do not have an unlimited amount of time to acquire what you need. When you begin the quest, you have 20 days to explore Mount Nevermind and gather up as much useful stuff as you can. For each new chamber you explore, you are required to mark off that 1 day has passed (man, our character must be one slow ass adventurer). Should you find yourself re-visiting a chamber you have already been to, either intentionally or not, you are only required to mark off one half day. Once you reach 20 days, you are required to assemble in front of the mountain and prepare for the final battle (discussed below) whether you are ready or not. However, you are also free to move on to the final battle any time you wish, even after one day, should you feel you are prepared or if you just want to get on with it already. This opens up a bit of a loophole whereby you could just immediately travel to the final battle, knowing that you can't win on that playthrough, but allowing you to see what is involved in winning and just what items you will need to acquire within the mountain to give yourself any kind of a chance. I call it a loophole but this might actually be a good thing, as there is very little rhyme of reason as to what items might be helpful, and many of them are quite well hidden.   

Imps

Before entering, we learn that Mount Nevermind has been infested with imps! (The gnomes have a committee investigating the situation). One of these evil little creatures is present in almost every chamber you enter, and you generally need to decide whether you want to fight the imp upon entering, or just ignore it. The imps are not much of a challenge in combat, as one hit will take them out, however they have a very small chance of killing you with their poisonous barbed tails should they get a couple of hits in on you. Choosing to ignore them can be dangerous as well, as events within a chamber could play out differently depending upon if the imp in that location is still alive or not, with them possibly causing you problems or stirring up trouble should they still be around. This made for some interesting decisions when first arriving at a chamber, and I usually found it beneficial to eliminate the imp before exploring, as they could otherwise prevent you from acquiring a useful item. There is also a particular chamber where you can aid the imps in returning to their own plane of existence (they don't actually want to be in Mount Nevermind), and should you succeed, you from then on have a chance to convince any new imp you encounter to go home (although they may not believe you and attack anyway).

Draconian bookmark

Much like the previous book's "Elf" bookmark, this adventure comes with a "Draconian" bookmark, which is similarly inserted between two pages at random before beginning the quest. It seems the Queen of Darkness has sent forth 12 Draconian scouts (basically lizardmen) into Mount Nevermind in order to gather intel on its layout and defenses. Should you come to either of the two pages the bookmark is between while playing, you are then required to take the number located on the bottom left hand page to find out which of the 12 Draconians you have encountered, which are listed on the bookmark itself. Some of these scouts are quite dangerous adversaries, while others may be totally inept, or even fast asleep, when you come across them. I thought this worked much better than the Elf bookmark from book 1, as the Draconians were integrated into the story itself this time and it actually made sense when you encountered one. 

Gnomish Machinery Figure-Out Chart

You will come across many machines of strange design and construction as you explore the mountain, with gears, levers, and buttons all over, and you can attempt to determine if any of them will be useful to you in your goal of defeating the Dragonarmy. In order to do that, you need to figure out exactly what they do, and for this you will be instructed to turn to the Gnomish Machinery Figure-Out Chart at the back of the book. It is a bit difficult to explain how this works, so I have included a picture of the chart below. Whether you are able to figure out the piece of machinery in question is determined randomly, as you start at the top of the chart and roll the die, with the number you get sending you down to the indicated section. You continue rolling and moving on down (I used a token) until you either arrive at the desired letter and succeed (for each machine you will be given a letter that you need to reach, either  A, B, C, or D), or you fall through the bottom and can then choose to start over or quit. Should you succeed, you figure out what the machine does and can add it to your arsenal for the final battle, should it be of any use. Not all of the machines prove useful, and one even insta-killed me when I successfully figured it out, which was very annoying I have to admit. I thought this chart was a great idea in theory, as it does seem it would be quite random for you to figure out what these machines do, and while some of the devices are helpful, thankfully none of them are required to win the adventure. I also enjoyed the feeling that I was playing a game of Plinko from "The Price is Right". Unfortunately though, many of the boxes on the chart (indicated by landing on any of the letters E,F,G,H,I,J,K, or L) require you to turn to either the Malefic or Beneficent tables described below, to either suffer or benefit from an effect, which grinds the process to a halt and can involve a lot of note taking. A nice idea though, and with a couple of tweaks this could really be something good. 

Malefic and Beneficent tables

These are two tables contained at the back of the book that each list 20 different negative or positive effects that may befall you. When instructed by the book to turn to one of these tables, you begin at number 1 on the indicated table, and make your way down the list to the next number each time you are sent back there. Honestly, I think these tables were just one thing too many to keep track of. Some of the effects are very easy to make note of (lose 3 Armour points, or gain 2 Life points for example), but many others are things such as "you do double damage in your next combat" or "you miss on your next two combat rounds", which can pile up quickly and lead to the player having numerous effects in play all at the same time. As mentioned, they also make the Gnomish Machinery Figure-Out Chart a pain to negotiate, as you are constantly flipping to these tables while trying to deduce how a piece of machinery works. To be fair, these Malefic and Beneficent charts were present in the previous book as well, but in that adventure I found myself being sent to them so infrequently that they barely rated a mention. Here though, they just clog up the works.  

Final Battle

This adventure was on its way to a higher score than what I ultimately gave it, but unfortunately this final battle drags it down somewhat. It actually starts out extremely impressively, as once you have gathered all the items you feel you will need to defend the mountain (or if your time runs out), you head to the staging area in front of the mountain to gather your forces. As it turns out, the gnomes have taken everything you have found and assembled it all into one giant machine with which you are expected to pilot out and confront the approaching Dragonarmy. Your army is given 100 Life points, and you have Offense and Defense scores which are determined by whatever items you managed to recover. Now for the oncoming Dragonarmy.......and hooo boy, it's stacked more than Elvira Mistress of the Dark. The Dragonarmy is given 200 Life Points, and you are shown that it is made up of: 5 different types of Draconians, 6 different types of Dragons, a battalion of Ogres, and a platoon of Humans. This gives the Dragonarmy a possible 13 different squads, each with their own Offense and Defense scores. The idea here is that you add up the Offense and Defense scores of each possible squad to arrive at a total Offense and Defense score for the whole army. I say possible squads because whole squads, along with their scores, can be eliminated from the battle should you have a given item which allows you to do so. For example, should you have found the magical black candles, you can cross the Black Dragon squad off the list and remove them from the fight. And you are going to need just about every such item, as due to the Dragonarmy having double your Life Point total (and the Dragonarmy always starting with 200 Life Points regardless of how many squads it has remaining seems like a mistake), I don't see how you can realistically win this fight unless you have found the items that will eliminate all, or almost all, of the Dragon and Draconian squadrons. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it would make sense that even one squadron of Dragons would decimate an army of gnomes, along with their leader who is driving a crazy machine, it just means you are going to have to spend a heck of a lot of time exploring the mountain to find everything you need. In addition, I don't believe there is anything to be found in the adventure that can remove the Humans from the battle, and the item required to remove the Ogres from the fight requires you to be ridiculously lucky in a die roll in one of the chambers, so you can count on those two groups always being present. That said, should you succeed in finding the items that eliminate ALL the Dragons and Draconians, the final score will very likely end up being Gnomes-100, Dragons-0, so this was likely the idea.  

Where it really fails to deliver though is in the story telling. Here we have this supposedly epic final battle, but there is no narrative description of it given whatsoever, and I felt like I was just working on a math equation the whole time in totaling up the scores. And with how the combat here works (subtracting Defense of one army from the Offense of the other to determine damage done on a successful hit, with you needing an 8 or lower to hit and the Dragonarmy needing a 7 or lower), if you find that your Offense and Defense scores and that of the Dragonarmy's are close in value, this fight is really going to drag on, with both of you having Life Point totals in the hundreds and possibly only doing a couple of points of damage on a successful hit! And what if the scores are equal? Stalemate! And even after all that, the cherry on top comes when you finally defeat the Dragonarmy and are ready to be rewarded with the victory section.....only to be given an incorrect section reference to turn to! This is the only incorrect section reference I can recall coming across in the whole book, but what a time for that to happen. I tried several variations of the given reference with no luck, and as I wasn't about to go through every section in the largest gamebook I have yet played, I still don't know what happens when you win. I assume it was something suitably irreverent. I don't generally penalize a book for the odd editing error, but this one hurts.  

UPDATE: After posting this review, I came across an Amazon review that gives the correct victory section as 92K for anyone else looking. (And while I wouldn't say the ending was irreverent, it was surprisingly brief considering how large the adventure is.) Thank you to that reviewer!        

One final note about the tone of the book, which as mentioned earlier is comedy all the way. For the most part I felt this worked well, and authors Jean Blashfield and James Ward managed to work it in without turning the whole thing into complete farce. I am not all that familiar with the Dragonlance universe, but I didn't think it was this heavy on the comedy? Perhaps this is due to the story being gnome-centric, and for all I know the gnomes are the comedy relief of the Dragonlance universe, so maybe this was to be expected. It is made pretty clear that Earth is one of the different planes of existence here too, as you can find items such as a telephone and a working train, although it can be a bit odd to be asked if you want to "examine the telephone", then have your character pick it up and have no idea what it is or what it does. There are some additional moments too though where it might go a bit overboard, such as encountering the Wizard of Oz at one point, then backing out of the room as you realize you are in the wrong story. That was a little too "meta" for me, but overall I found the humour hit a lot more than it missed.   

Ranking: With the exception of the illustrations, this is a clear improvement upon the first book. The story is still a bit weak, but there is a boatload of content in this gamebook, and exploring Mount Nevermind is great fun, with the authors also having introduced several interesting mechanics (if even a couple of them don't quite live up to their full potential). And while the first book often came across to me as unintentionally silly, this adventure knows exactly how silly it is, and fully embraces it. With a better story, and a better final battle, this could have been great, but as it is, it still makes it into the Good tier. Due to the length and section counts of these books, along with the in-depth exploring required, I am going to need to take a "halftime break" from this series, as this entry alone took me almost 3 weeks to finish. However, based upon my experience with book 2, I am eagerly looking forward to returning to see if the series can improve yet again. 

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3. The Final Bug - Score = 6.3   Tier = OK

Attempts to Beat: 4

Continuing on with the Catacombs series, I get to the "secret agent" entry from author Jean Blashfield, which is one I have been greatly looking forward to playing. I have long felt that the spy genre is tailor made for a gamebook series, and while this adventure didn't quite live up to my expectations, that had more to do with the game mechanics of the book as opposed to the setting, which is great. It is almost impossible to have a secret agent story without drawing comparisons to the James Bond franchise, which has dominated the genre for decades (although Tom Cruise's "Mission Impossible" series has been making a valiant run at the crown in recent years). This adventure doesn't even try to hide the James Bond comparisons, as here you play as Sebastian Cord, agent for the Orion foundation, a covert American spy agency that was put in place to thwart the nefarious "Web", a mysterious organization bent on global domination (aren't they always?). Cord is a successful gambler, womanizer, and generally enjoys living the "high life". Remind you of anybody? The adventure opens with Cord in the middle of an all-night gambling bender in Atlantic City, when he gets a call from Orion Headquarters telling him to catch an early morning flight to Denver, where a fellow Orion agent has just been found murdered. Upon arriving at the Orion field office in Denver, another dead body is discovered, this time a stranger is found dead, locked inside the high security Orion computer room (pictured on the cover). It is then up to Cord to solve the mystery of who this stranger is, what he was doing there, and how he managed to infiltrate the secure undercover headquarters.

"Cord. Sebastian Cord."
(Too bad I never came across him saying this. The adventure even begins in a casino for crying out loud!)

Before we begin playing though, we are given our Cord character's starting attributes and statistics, and holy smoke did they go over the top with this or what? Cord has a whopping 17 attributes that we are given his values for (although you can roll up your own if you wish), and these include: Strength, Reflexes, Intelligence, Willpower, Constitution, Movement, Dexterity, Pistol, Melee, Knife, Automobile Driving, Motorcycle Driving, Social Chameleon, Sixth Sense, Social Graces, Artistic Ability, and Appearance. Phew! Some of these, such as Intelligence and Dexterity for example, can be tested with a skill check, while others, such as Pistol and Melee, are used in the game's combat system. This was all very impressive at first, and I noted all my scores down on my character sheet with joy. However, by the time I had finished the adventure I realized that a whole bunch of them I had never used at all (is there even a motorcycle in this book?), and this is especially the case over the whole first third of the adventure, which only really utilizes one of the attributes, that being Intelligence. 

The combat system is another facet of the adventure that initially seems impressive, but once you have been in a couple of fights you start to realize that it is just not very exciting. The way it works is, whenever you get in a fight, you are to use a diagram for both you and your enemy that shows the outline of a human body, with 8 hit boxes over each area of: upper chest, right side of body, left side of body, and abdomen. You and your opponent take turns rolling two 10-sided dice (or randomly flipping the pages which have dice numbers in the bottom corners) and attempt to roll beneath your value with the weapons being used (Pistol, Melee, or Knife). The two dice are not added together, but one die is to act as the "tens" value, and the other as the "ones" value. Should you roll under your value in that attribute, you score a hit, and the values of the dice also determine what body area of your opponent you hit and how many boxes to mark off. Once all 8 boxes are marked off in any one body area, that combatant dies. The frustrating thing here is that you can score a successful hit, but if the dice indicate that you struck the opponent's arms or legs, then no damage is done. C'mon! I blow his kneecap off and he just continues on like nothing happened? Grrrr. The adventure also contains one of those similarly frustrating rules that state should either you or your opponent roll doubles on a successful hit, then it's a critical hit and an insta-kill. So, ultimately the combat system was a noble effort, but has a couple of problems that serve to bring it low. 

The supplementary materials that come with the gamebook on the other hand work beautifully! Also before you begin, you are told there is a clue packet at the back of the book, which is an envelope glued inside the back cover that holds various items such as photographs, newspaper articles, or brochures. When you arrive at a certain point in the gamebook, you may be instructed to take one of them out and read or examine it. None of this was necessary of course, as all the information on them could just have easily been included within the section of the adventure, but they do a wonderful job in the area of atmosphere and immersion. For example, very early on when investigating the computer room at Orion, you can be told to take the computer printout from the clue packet so that you can examine it. Doing so will find you bringing out an actual piece of printer paper such as was common in the 80's, with the alternating green and white lines and the holes along the side to feed it through the printer. Really great stuff! Even though I bought my copy of this book second hand, it appears as though it had never been played, as the spine of the book is uncreased, and all the materials are in the packet. I am especially thankful for that, as it would have been a real shame if these had been missing.       

Once we finally start, the opening act of the adventure serves as the initial investigation phase, and involves you searching several rooms for clues. There is a strange story beat where it is explained that every time Cord enters a room, he sketches it out in his notebook because he finds doing so helps him to more accurately hone in on items of interest and anything that may be out of place. This seems to be an attempt to provide an in-world excuse as to why you are provided with a sketch illustration of each room that Cord goes into, which I don't think is necessary. And besides, does everyone you are waiting to talk to just stand around while you take 10 minutes drawing busily in your sketchbook? That strangeness aside, this opening investigation sequence is filled with wonderful 80's nostalgia, as Cord examines things such as large desktop computers and floppy disk drives, and at one point even visits a local boardgame and hobby shop filled with various role playing games. Not since playing Appointment with F.E.A.R did I feel so magically transported back to this decade. The sequence does start to drag on though, with examination and interviews repeating over and over, and with very little action. You eventually arrive at the conclusion that it was an inside job that allowed the man into the secure computer room, and narrow the list down to 4 possible agents who could possibly have turned traitor. There are several Intelligence checks that can be made as you investigate, the passing of which will grant you some evidence as to who the culprit is. These aren't essential to pass however, as even should you fail them, you can use your own intuition when the crucial time comes to decide which of the suspects you wish to follow. Unfortunately, I think the adventure makes it a bit too easy to determine who the guilty party is. On my initial playthrough, I found myself failing almost all of the Intelligence checks as I explored (impressive considering how passing these checks is actually in your favour), but still guessed correctly, as I thought the answer was obvious. I was hoping there might be a twist here whereby the author may have been trying to dupe me, but no, the obvious answer turned out to also be the correct one.  

Once you have determined who you need to follow, you proceed on to the next part of the adventure, which takes place in a secret volcano mountain lair. First though, you need to discover the layout of the facility, which will vary from playthrough to playthrough. This is done by the inclusion of a laminated card contained within the clue packet that has 9 different rooms drawn out on it (Lobby, Laboratory, Office, Lounge, Animal Room, Kitchen, Library, Bedroom, and Garage ). You are meant to cut the rooms out, and then use dice to determine the layout of the facility for that playthrough, placing the rooms down on a table. I couldn't bring myself to cut up the pristine laminated card, so I just drew out the rooms on a piece of paper. This whole process is yet another that seems very cool at first, but once you discover what you need to do to get the randomized layout, it gets tedious real quick. How it works is this, the Lobby always goes right in the middle (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense now that I think about it), and you then roll 2D10, and add up the total of the two dice (with a 0 counting as 10). This gives you a number between 2-20, and you consult a chart to see which room gets laid down first, placing it directly underneath the Lobby. You then continue rolling, and lay down the next room from the chart, going clockwise around the Lobby until all the rooms have been placed. The problem here quickly becomes obvious, in that once you have placed about half the rooms, you start to roll numbers that you have already rolled (and therefore have already placed the corresponding room), so you need to roll again until you get a number you haven't rolled yet. You can't really choose another method to lay the rooms down either (such as drawing them from a hat) without cheating, because should you roll a 20, instead of placing a room, an event occurs whereby you are discovered by the guards, and have a confrontation with them. Should you survive this encounter, for the rest of your time within the facility the guards are aware of your presence, and some of your options will then be limited. (Why on Earth the whole place doesn't go on lockdown once a secret agent is discovered on the premises is a mystery in itself, but everyone else except the guards continue going about their normal routines even after the alarm has been sounded). Once the layout of the facility is finally determined, the rules get a little cloudy. It mentions that all the rooms are connected to the Lobby, and also with the rooms adjacent to it, but as far as movement goes, it doesn't really say if you can travel to any room you wish. I have to believe you are intended to go around clockwise one room at a time based upon how you laid down the rooms, otherwise what the heck was the point of this whole process. 

The goal here is to then investigate the various rooms in the facility, avoiding detection by the guards but also trying to figure out just what the Web is up to here. The adventure throws in a wrinkle though in that you have a time limit, and it is at this point that you need to pull the Time Card out of the clue packet. Depending upon how you arrived at the facility, you will be told that you got there at a certain time (7pm for example), and mark this on the card as your starting time. Each room you explore will require you to cross off a certain number of boxes on the time card, with 4 boxes counting as one half hour. You won't have enough time to check out everything in the facility though because once the clock strikes midnight you are instructed to turn to a particular section, whether you have gathered enough evidence to determine what is going on at the facility or not. Strangely, you can very easily find yourself "Inspector Clouseau-ing" this shit, solving the case and killing the bad guys without ever really knowing what the hell is going on, because the gathering of some of the key information is not essential to beating the adventure. On my winning playthrough, I never did quite uncover what the Web was doing at the facility (although I could take a decent guess), so I thought this would mean game over for me for sure once the clock hit midnight. I was however given a second chance, in that even though I hadn't uncovered any secrets, I DID in fact know that the bad guy was scheduled to leave the facility later that night. This was apparently enough to trigger the final confrontation, and I found myself defeating said bad guy in a shootout. The denouement was then incredibly brief, as my Cord character not only strolled out of the facility, but BLEW IT UP while doing so, killing who knows how many people (not to mention all the animals in the Animal Room) on his way out. And all this despite me not having uncovered any real proof of anything. Going to be tough to explain this one to my superiors! And while this gamebook does appear to have fewer (albeit more descriptive) sections than the previous entries in the series, it still must have in the neighborhood of 800 or so, and with that many sections this adventure felt like it was over a bit too quickly. Flipping through the book afterwards, I came across what appears to have been an exciting sequence with the bad guy aboard a speeding train. Maybe some "From Russia with Love" styled action? This gamebook definitely feels like one that could benefit from some additional plays even after beating it.  

Ranking: The score here benefits from the 80's setting, which is awesome. The adventure itself is functional enough, if perhaps filled with several wasted opportunities. Many of the skills are barely if ever used, and the combat system can be frustrating. The immersion level is very high though thanks to the supplementary materials, but for a book containing 800 or so sections, the adventure can be completed rather quickly, with large swaths of it easily bypassed, perhaps even leaving you none the wiser on all the stuff you missed. Although, you could argue that the replayability level here is therefore quite high. I enjoyed this more than Faerie Mound of Dragonkind, but not nearly as much as Gnomes-100 Dragons-0. I suppose I will have to keep searching for that great "secret agent" gamebook, but overall this one was solid enough.  

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4. Knight of the Living Dead - Score = 9.3   Tier = Great!

Attempts to Beat: 11

Holy crap! Absolutely groan worthy title aside, this entry is fantastic, which sure surprised the hell out of me being that it is the last book in the series and all. This adventure by author Allen Varney takes place in the "Forgotten Realms" universe, which meant absolutely nothing to me as I don't believe I have ever read any of those books, and as such I am unsure which (if any) of the places or characters here are from that universe, or made up just for this adventure. But what a start this adventure gets off to, with one of the best prologues I have yet to read. This intro alternates between 3 different viewpoints, all happening concurrently. First, as midnight approaches, we get the perspective from an advancing army of thousands of zombies, skeletons, and vampires, as they stealthily approach the city of Waterdeep. Second, we get the viewpoint of two young lovers who are meeting for a late night tryst within the city's graveyard, blissfully unaware of the approaching undead horde only a few minutes away from breaching the city walls. Finally, and most interestingly, we get the point of view of an actual corpse buried in a shallow grave within that same graveyard. Why is this corpse conscious and aware of his surroundings? That we have not yet learned, but we get a great description of how he has no idea how long he has been buried there, as time has begun to pass imperceptibly for him while he begins to go mad, along with the horror of enduring the dirt filling his eyes, nostrils, and lungs, and also feeling the horrific presence of worms and other vermin coming to feast on his flesh. This was all so well told that I was getting chills reading it, and is an incredibly wonderful and unique way to begin an adventure. 

After this great prologue we are given the rules of the book, and I am happy to report that the attribute and combat system here is dialed back from the previous adventure, making this entry much the better for it. Not that I have a problem in theory with having a boatload of character attributes such as the previous book did, because this should allow for more options during gameplay, but if you are not going to come anywhere close to taking advantage of them, then what was the point? Just to have me record numbers for meaningless busywork? Here though, we just have 3 attributes. We have our Attack score, our Damage score, and our "Unlife" points. Combat here is simple, but still fun. You and your opponent take turns rolling a 12 sided die. If you roll equal to or under your Attack score, you successfully hit, and subtract your Damage score from their Unlife points, continuing back and forth until either of you gets down to zero and is destroyed, or if you decide to flee if given the option. 

So why "Unlife" points? Well, part of the uniqueness of the adventure occurs because we are playing as that buried corpse from the prologue. The first section opens with us being freed from our grave by a powerful lich, Abraxa, who along with her partner Haurrant (also a lich), are the ones responsible for the attacking army of the undead now running rampant through the streets of Waterdeep. Perhaps in an authorial attempt to avoid scenes of mass atrocity, the liches have also released a enormous cloud of sleeping gas called Effluvium into the city, which has incapacitated all the living residents and caused them to fall asleep wherever they were when the Effluvium struck right at midnight. The liches are attempting to take over the city with their army, promising the legions of the undead what they desire the most, the chance to live again through something called the Cathexis, in some sort of plan to transfer the life forces of the city inhabitants to the undead army. In order to complete this plan, the liches feel like they need something called the Staff of Waterdeep, a magical artefact in the possession of the grand wizard of the city. Problem is, when the city was attacked, a self-defense mechanism of the Staff was triggered to avoid it falling into evil hands, whereby the 12 component pieces of the Staff disassembled and returned to their individual places of origin scattered in and around the city. This is then the specific reason why Abraxa has raised you from your grave, and she assigns you the task of exploring Waterdeep and tracking down all the pieces of the Staff, or at least as many as you are able to get your now withered hands on. What Abraxa doesn't know is that because in life you were a mighty Paladin, a holy warrior, you have retained your sense of honour, justice, and duty. And while you initially agree to locate the pieces of the Staff for her, you hide from her the fact that you are only doing so in order to ultimately turn on her, and use the Staff to destroy both her and her partner, thus saving the many thousands of living inhabitants of the city.   

You do not set off alone however, as in order to help you locate the Staff pieces, Abraxa provides you with her cerebricule, which is a shrunken head that can sniff out magic, and also has the ability to smell a person or object and then give you any helpful details about their history. In addition, you also have a weasel skull in your possession. This is from a weasel that died along with you in your grave, and has been your only company inside the earth for who knows how long. Eventually, as you began to lose your sanity, this weasel skull began talking to you, and you realized it was a manifestation of your own consciousness. Even when you are unearthed, you find that you cannot bring yourself to part with it, and thus take it along with you concealed in your armour, where it still speaks to you. Thus, the cerebricule and the weasel skull act as your companions on the quest, and your conversations with them are often quite witty and amusing, providing just the right amount of humour for the adventure without crossing into full blown comedy. 

You then set off in search of the 12 pieces of the Staff, with the city of Waterdeep broken up into 9 areas (Castle Ward, Sea Ward, Trade Ward, etc), including the harbour and surrounding countryside, as shown on a full page map at the back of the book. In a brilliant move, you are given the option right off the top of exploring them in any order you choose. I love this style as it allows you to immediately go to unexplored areas with each new playthrough. Don't get me wrong, I certainly can enjoy more linear gamebooks as well, but a drawback with those is that you often need to slog through the same sequences over and over again just so that you can arrive where you last died and then try something different. Each area of Waterdeep contains anywhere between 1 to 3 locations of note (manor homes, shops, taverns, etc.) where the cerebricule detects the presence of magic, and therefore a possible piece of the Staff. Each of these locations is then described in detail, along with a provided full page illustration, and after dealing with any other creatures who may be present in the location, you are then free to examine the various items there. Some of these items may be helpful, some harmful, and some benign. Even though the inhabitants of the city have been put to sleep by the Effluvium, there are still many dangers to face in the various locations, because you are only one of many undead that have been set loose to seek out pieces of the Staff. And since finding any of the pieces will result in winning the favour of the liches and a quicker return to the land of the living, these are hotly contested items among the various undead seeking them out, who are obviously not above stabbing each other in the back in their quest to obtain them. Some pieces of the Staff are relatively easy to acquire, and some require you to fight a difficult foe. A couple are even well hidden, requiring you to obtain one or two other items first before you will be able to find them. The adventure does a really nice job of mixing up the difficulty when it comes to finding the various pieces, and I found myself having that all-too-familiar triumphant moment whenever I located one.     

And boy are you ever going to need as many Staff pieces as you can get! Once you feel you have located enough (or if you just want to proceed to the end game, which you can do at any time), you then head for the location given to you by Abraxa at the start of the quest as to where you should go when you think you have fulfilled your mission. This final sequence dials up the intensity level, as the story takes a couple of unexpected turns, and the true evil scheme that is slowly revealed is described in both horrific and gory detail. When you eventually navigate these horrors, you come to the final encounter and combat of the adventure, and is this ever a doozy! This is where the pieces of the Staff come in, with each of the 12 pieces assigned a number between 1 and 12. When the time comes to use the Staff in this final fight, you roll the 12 sided die on your attack round, and should you have the Staff piece that corresponds to the number, you look up its effect in a chart to see what it does. Some of the pieces deal out large amounts of damage such as 30 or 40 Unlife points, while others might stun your opponent, not allowing them to attack for a couple of rounds. There is some strategy at play here too, as should you roll a number for a Staff piece that you possess, but you do not like the effect given, you can choose instead to heal yourself back up to maximum. You also only get to use each Staff piece once, but should you roll a number for a piece you already used, you can choose to use either the next highest or next lowest numbered piece you have left. However, if you never had the Staff piece for the number you rolled to begin with, then your attack fails outright. Because the enemy stats for this fight are extremely high, you badly need to find as many Staff pieces as you can, or you are in big trouble! (You are actually given the option of foregoing using the Staff and fighting with your sword, but you would be so incredibly outclassed in that situation as to make it feel suicidal). It was immensely satisfying to come in loaded for bear with Staff pieces, and then proceed to chain together several powerful attacks in a row. In fact, when all was said and done, this was one of the best final battles I have yet played through.   

There are a few other game mechanics at play in the adventure that I have not mentioned yet, mainly because for the most part they either don't work nearly as well as the other aspects of the book, or they don't take up very much of the quest. These include: 

-First, there is a time mechanic at play here, with the adventure starting at 12:00 am. You are told in the rules that moving between and exploring locations will take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour (depending on how far away the area you are travelling to is), and you are meant to advance the clock as you go along. Once 24 hours have passed, you then have no choice but to immediately proceed to the end sequence. The problem is, as is common with these kinds of mechanics, I found I never came anywhere close to using up the full 24 hours. You are supposed to be told whenever you need to add time for performing various time consuming actions (such as stopping to read a book), but the author frequently seems to have forgotten to do this in most areas. I can also only recall one instance of events being different depending upon what time of day you arrived at a location, which could have drawn out the exploring even more had it been implemented elsewhere. But to be fair, that would have added even more work to what already surely must have been a boatload of effort that went into this. As it stands though, I think the whole time mechanic could have been scrapped without it detracting from the adventure in any meaningful way, as it quickly starts to feel like pointless bookkeeping. 

-Second, there are actually two different paladins you can play as, each coming with their own bookmark that lists their stats. The differences in attributes between the two is minimal, but the main reason for playing as a different paladin would be in the memory mechanic. This is because there are certain sections in the book that cause you to remember something from your past, and at that point you are told to turn to the next memory section reference on your bookmark, crossing them off sequentially as you go, and thus uncovering more and more about who you were and what you accomplished when you were alive. This is kind of neat, but I'm not sure how much it enhances replayability (if that was the goal), because the locations of the Staff pieces and any other items don't change depending on your paladin, so once you beat the adventure you would know exactly where to find everything. If you really wanted to learn more about the paladin you didn't play as, you could just read through their memory sections on your own. 

- And third, there is the "evidence" mechanic. Throughout the adventure you can perform certain actions, either honorable or dishonorable, which could require you to check off one of the evidence boxes marked A through D on your bookmark. Once you finally beat the bad guys and win the day, how you comported yourself during the quest, and which evidence boxes you checked off, will impact the ending you get. While it doesn't take up very much of the book, it is actually a very nice touch, and was the one mechanic mentioned in these last few listed here that really worked well.  

Finally, with all the good stuff mentioned throughout this review, you'd think maybe the actual writing of the adventure might not measure up. But nope, author Allen Varney nails that aspect also, as this book is excellently written. From the amazing prologue all the way through to the bittersweet final section, Varney sure gave this one his all. Funny, but I don't recall his prose being this good in the other books of his I have played. They were solid sure, but nothing like this. In fact, Varney's output in general has been all over the map, with the really good Through Six Dimensions from the "Marvel Super Heroes" series, followed by the barely passable and why-even-bother-playing-it The Vanishing City from the "Advanced D&D" series, and now on to this wonderfully constructed adventure. I'd love to know how much time he spent on this Catacombs entry, because this sure feels like a large undertaking, despite it having the fewest sections in the series (although it's still a large number compared to a typical 80's gamebook section count). As far as I can tell, this is Varney's last gamebook, which was a fact that left me a bit crestfallen upon discovering, as I enjoyed this one so thoroughly.    

Ranking; The final book in a series often (though not always) tends to be one of the worst on offer, but that sure isn't the case here. This is easily the best adventure in the series, and also one of the better ones I have played period. Excellent writing, interesting locations that encourage exploring, many items to find and experiment with, a unique and engrossing story with lots of fleshed out encounters, and a wonderfully constructed final fight all add up to provide a great experience. The time mechanic (which has been a bugaboo for many a gamebook) and the choice of two different paladins fall a bit flat, but these are minor quibbles that thankfully don't detract too much from the adventure. Definitely recommended if you can get your hands on it at a decent price, and on that note it's a shame this hasn't been reissued. That said, what a great way to conclude the series!