Diceman Magazine

RANKINGS

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1. Diceman Issue #1 - 💀💀💀 Three Skulls

Attempts to beat: 12

Genius! Right off the top, I have to say that the combination of gamebook and comic book featured in this magazine is a brilliant idea. You begin on panel 1, as you would a normal comic, and proceed sequentially until you are either given a choice, whereby you are directed to a different numbered panel, or you have to make a dice check, or fight a monster. This first issue of the 2000 A.D's Diceman magazine presents 3 standalone adventures which are all very distinct from one another. We have essentially a haunted house story, a sci-fi race adventure, and a standard fantasy dungeon crawl. Each adventure is roughly 100 sections or so and sees you playing as an already established, although perhaps somewhat lesser known, comic book character. I will review each of the adventures separately below:

1 - "You are Judge Dredd in House of Death" - Attempts to Beat: 2

In the first story we get to play as Judge Dredd, the famous badass law enforcement officer who patrols Mega-City One in a near-future version of Earth. The story opens with Dredd sent to investigate Croglin Mansion, an abandoned house near the waterfront, where it is thought that an illegal cult known as The Brotherhood of Baal is holed up, with the cult suspected in the disappearance of hundreds of local residents. Wait a second....Baal??? Could it be the same Baal from the Falcon gamebook series? I'm going to have to do some more research on this Baal character as I keep seeing him pop up in different places. Anyway, Dredd arrives at the derelict mansion to discover that the cult has summoned a quartet of "evil Judges" (Mortis, Fear, Fire, and Death) from the dimension of Limbo. So, Dredd must therefore make his way through the mansion, defeating all 4 of the Judges and shutting down the power generator that is allowing them to remain in this dimension. 

The game system is actually extremely simple. You have one stat, Energy, which can have a starting value of anywhere between 41-46. Whenever you encounter an enemy, you are given the number they need on a roll of two dice to hit you. You roll, and if that number or higher comes up, they have then successfully hit, and you deduct an amount of damage specified on that panel (usually a roll of either one or two dice to determine how much Energy you lose). You only do this roll once per combat, and as long as your Energy isn't brought down to 0, you win and continue on. This actually contributes to making the adventure very easy as on both of my attempts I never came close to losing all my Energy. In fact I never even lost half of it. My only death occurred because I did something I knew was stupid, but I was so curious to see how it played out that I did it anyway and sure enough it led to an instant death, otherwise I would have beaten the adventure on my first go. 

The ease of difficulty is probably the biggest weakness of this quest, but that very well may have been intentional seeing as how this was the very first adventure and was likely used as a means for the readers to get acclimated to the style of the magazine. The big strength of the adventure however is the atmosphere and immersion, which is fantastic. The artwork I also found to be top notch and really helped to build up the intensity level. There is a strong "House of Hell" vibe here as you make your way through this creepy mansion, battling demons and cultists. The final panel of the story also bears a striking resemblance to the final scene in that Fighting Fantasy book as well. For a first adventure, I thoroughly enjoyed this.   

2 - "You are Nemesis the Warlock in The Torture Tube" - Attempts to Beat: 3

Here we play as Nemesis, an alien agent sworn to battle the evil Torquemada, a brutal dictator who now rules over the Earth thousands of years in the future. In the prologue we learn that Torquemada has captured our fellow agent, the scantily-clad Purity Brown, and has promised us that she will be executed at midnight unless we are able to rescue her. Despite the fact this is obviously a trap, seeing as how Torquemada has also told us where Purity is being held, we nevertheless have no choice but to hop in our spaceship, Blitzspear, and race through the tubes and tunnels that now dominate Earth's underground in order to save her before the clock strikes midnight.

The game system does some quite clever things, but also misses a couple of opportunities. You have an Armour rating for your Blitzspear craft, which can range from anywhere between 9-14 to start. The more interesting part though is you also have a speedometer, where you can control how fast you are travelling through the underground tubes. You begin on panel 1 travelling at a speed of 30 mph and can either increase or decrease your speed by 10 mph with each new panel you come to, up to a maximum of 120 mph. As you fly along you will encounter various obstacles and enemies, such as flying police cars or gun posts, and oftentimes what happens will be dependent upon how fast you are travelling. The faster you are going, the harder it is for you to hit anything, but it's also harder for your enemies to hit you. Im not really sure being hit matters though, as I believe even if everything you encounter is successful in hitting you, that you still have enough Armour to make it to the end of the adventure. The real danger in failing the adventure comes from going either too fast or too slow at the wrong time, which can lead to an instant fiery death. The adventure is therefore a trial and error exercise (of which I generally enjoy), where you map out the speeds you need to be going at when you get to each part of the tube. Additionally, there is a Score component in the adventure, where you gain points for each enemy you successfully destroy along the way. This Score tally really has no bearing on the quest though, and apparently just exists to give you a reason to replay and try to get a better Score, or perhaps compare your Score with other players. While I generally found the game system in this adventure to be better than the Judge Dredd quest, I thought the artwork here, while not bad by any means, was a step back and not nearly as immersive as in the previous story. Overall, another enjoyable adventure though.   

3 - "You are Slaine in Cauldron of Blood" - Attempts to Beat: 7

The third and final comic adventure of the magazine is a fantasy quest that sees us play as Slaine the Barbarian, who along with his dwarf companion Ukko, decides to steal the mystical Cauldron of Blood from inside the Tower of Glass. The Tower is ruled over by the evil Drune Lord, Slough Grunsgul, and various monsters and traps must be overcome in order for us to successfully obtain the treasure we seek. 

In story, this adventure is most similar to the typical fantasy gamebook, as it's a dungeon crawl where we get to fight creatures such as goblins, skeletons, and various abominations. In that respect, it's not the most original of the three adventures, but in terms of game system however, I think this might be the best of the three. You only have one stat here, which is your Warp Rating. This is an indicator of your combined strength, intelligence, and experience, and this number can range anywhere from 17-22 when you first begin the quest. The number acts similar to a Stamina or Life Point score, and when you take any damage you deduct from the Rating, and if you ever hit 0 you are dead. This seems to me to be strangely named, and I'm not sure if "Warp Rating" has some meaning specific to the Slaine comic books that I'm not aware of, never having read anything from that series. Regardless, every enemy you encounter also has their own Warp Rating, and combat works by having you roll two dice for yourself, then two dice for your opponent, with the higher score winning the round. You are given a slight advantage in combat because you are so proficient with your axe, Brainbiter, that you always get to add +1 to your combat roll. The really interesting part here is that it is the DIFFERENCE between rolls that determines how many points either you or your opponent loses from their Warp Rating. Therefore if you score a 4 and your opponent scores a 12 in a round, you would lose 8 points off your Warp Rating, with combat continuing until one of you gets down to 0 and dies. I really enjoyed this and thought it made the battles incredibly tense, as even though you may have (and almost always do) a higher Warp Rating than your adversary when combat begins, just a couple of poor rolls can see the odds brought level quite quickly! I wonder why I haven't seen this style of combat implemented in gamebooks more often. 

The good news regarding the Warp Rating for your Slaine character is that should you win the battle, you get to add the INITIAL Warp Rating that your opponent began the fight with to your total that you have at the end of the fight. This is supposed to reflect the experience gained from defeating this particular creature. I was genuinely playing through the quest hoping this Rating would be tested at the end of the story (and not just used as another Score system as found in the Nemesis adventure) and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was indeed put to the test, as after the final confrontation with Slough Grunsgul, your Warp Rating needs to be at a certain level or you die. Yes, this does mean that luck plays perhaps a bigger part in the adventure than I'm sure most would like, as you can know exactly what to do but have trouble passing this final test if you are getting even moderately unlucky in the combats, but I thought this added just the right level of challenge to the quest, and I enjoyed the tension this brought about to every fight as you needed to put your enemies away as quickly as possible to save as many Warp points as you could. This also encourages you to actually seek out and kill as many creatures as you can before moving on to the final battle, because you will need to add as many of their Warp scores to your own as you can find. 

It's an extreme shame then that there is an item essential to completing the adventure that is hidden behind a 50-50 luck roll where failure means death. Im not going to go so far as to say it ruins the game by any means (a 50-50 roll is a walk in the park compared to some gamebooks I've played recently), but I'm not sure what the authors were thinking here, and it really wasn't necessary as the story has just the right level of challenge without it. I did like though how the adventure cleverly tries to catch you out at the very end, giving you a final choice to make that depends on how much you were paying attention, about not only what information you may have picked up along the way, but also where you may have acquired it. The artwork is also back to being great as it was in the Judge Dredd adventure, and does a fantastic job in setting the atmosphere both outside and inside the tower. Three good adventures in a row!   

    

Ranking: If you like gamebooks, and you like comic books (as I do), this is a no-brainer recommendation and you should really try this. Im sure this score seems a bit low based on the review above, and I badly wanted to give it another Skull, but felt this is the highest I could go based upon how quickly you can complete each of the adventures. Because there is obviously not nearly as much reading to be done as you would find in a similar 100 section gamebook, it means that you can rip through the whole magazine pretty quickly. Even the third adventure which took me the most attempts at 7 didn't take very long in total time to complete, and even then I was taking my time in soaking up the artwork. Still, it's definitely a "high" 3 Skull rating. 

The possibilities that come to mind for a much longer single adventure told in comic form are quite tantalizing, even if I realize how much work assembling all the art would be. Shortness of length aside, the immersion factor thanks to all the stellar artwork is off the charts, and I can't deny the visceral feeling the comic presentation gave me while I was playing. Being an anthology collection, another strength is that it allowed game designer Pat Mills the opportunity for each adventure to introduce its own unique rules and game systems. It is also precisely this kind of gamebook-meets-comic innovation that gets me excited to see what ideas people have had, and what ideas they can come up with regarding gamebooks in the future. I can't wait to read more of these. Well done chaps!

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2. Diceman Issue #2 - 💀💀💀 Three Skulls

Attempts to beat: 9

On to issue #2 of the magazine, and despite it containing what for me is the best individual adventure yet, this edition overall didn't quite measure up to the first issue. Once again we have 3 standalone comic adventures, but 2 of them borrow game systems that were used in issue #1 and the magazine seems to contain less content than was found in the previous issue, some of which can be attributed to this issue having a "letters" section which takes up several pages. As for the adventures themselves, this time we are treated to a sci-fi battle against a giant robot, a horror themed detective story, and another fantasy dungeon crawl. Reviewing each below:

1 - "You are the A.B.C. Warrior vs Volgo the Ultimate Death Machine" - Attempts to Beat: 1

We begin with this sci-fi adventure in which we play as the A.B.C (Atomic. Bacterial. Chemical.) Warrior, a war robot sent deep into Volgan territory to destroy a giant enemy robot and its vast array of hi-tech destructive weapons before it makes its way to our country. The game system here is borrowed from the Nemesis adventure from issue #1, with you beginning with an Armour rating and also having a speedometer for you to track your speed. Once again you are able to either increase or decrease your speed by 10 mph with each panel. The Nemesis adventure however had a speedometer actually printed on each panel, while here you are advised to "draw a speedo on your scoresheet", which could have led to some interesting artwork!

The whole adventure is basically a one-on-one battle between you and Volgo, with each of you firing at one another as you attempt to bring down each other's Armour rating. Once again, the speed at which you are travelling determines how difficult it is for you to hit Volgo, and in turn to be hit by him. The only way you can actually defeat Volgo is by hitting him with your most powerful armament, a mini-nuke, but you need to wear down his Armour rating first so that the nuke can penetrate his shell. What score you need to lower his Armour rating down to before you fire this weapon is left a mystery (he begins with Armour of 18), and you are only given a panel number and told to turn to it once you feel his Armour is low enough and you wish to fire the nuke. 

This doesn't really work all that well for several reasons. First off, this adventure is an incredibly brief 50 panels in length. With the biggest weakness of the previous 100 panel adventures being their shortness, cutting that total in half is almost a death knell. And indeed this battle is over quite quickly. I was surprised in that you really don't need to get Volgo's Armour rating down all that much in order for the nuke to be successful, and even if you wanted to try and wear him down more than you already have, you are quickly sent to the "fire the nuke" panel anyway, whether you wanted to fire it or not. The speedometer mechanic doesn't seem to fit as well as it did in the Nemesis adventure either, where it made more sense that you would constantly be determining your speed while racing through underground tube tunnels instead of presumably flying circles around a massive robot. 

The artwork isn't great, but it's decent, with your A.B.C. Warrior character looking somewhat like Voltron from the 80's animated show. The sci-fi stories seem like they will have a tougher time in getting that gritty, visceral feel that the earth set or fantasy stories have proven more capable of, which is unfortunate. The adventure is also over very, very quickly, and I found it extremely easy to boot, beating it on my first attempt. As such, Id have to say this is the lowest ranked individual adventure yet. 

2 - "You are the Diceman In the Bronx, No One Can Hear You Scream!" - Attempts to Beat: 6

And just like that we go from the weakest adventure I've played in this series so far to the strongest. This one is great! At 110 panels we are back to the length previously seen in the first issue and this adventure sure makes good use of it. In this story, you play as Rick Fortune, a wise-cracking paranormal investigator living in 1930's New York City. Rick is no ordinary detective though, as he possesses "The Dice of Destiny", two mystical dice that he once found on an earlier treasure hunt. The Dice have the ability to change destiny, but how they do that is left to chance. Before you begin the adventure, you roll one die, with the resulting number indicating the "power" you have for that particular attempt at completing the game. The powers you can take with you on the quest depending on what you roll are:

    1 - The Web - distorts time and space, creates illusions and confusion

    2 - The Key - sharpens mental powers and increases personal appeal

    3 - The Guardian - can summon Astragal, a malevolent demon who mysteriously serves you (Rick fears this power the most)

    4 - The Fist - greatly increases strength and agility

    5 - Lightning - opens a gateway through which strange phenomena pass, Astragal sometimes also is summoned through this gateway

    6 - The Bat - a shadow of a large bat appears, but nothing happens. Roll again if you get this

At first I felt like you should be able to choose your ability, to prevent you getting the same one over and over again, but the more I played I think the random element here actually works better. Seeing as how Rick doesn't really understand the dice, it makes sense that he would not be in control of what power he has. Even still, you are allowed one, and only one, re-roll should you not like your initial power, which helps greatly in allowing you to try most if not all of the powers eventually. And perhaps best of all, the adventure can be realistically completed with any of the powers, although The Fist seems to me to be the one you want most as it helps you avoid a necessary do-or-die roll, where you have a one-in-three chance of failing. The Guardian is however probably the most interesting power, as you never know exactly what Astragal will do when called upon, and his appearance contributes greatly to the horror theme of the story.  

You also begin the adventure with two other attributes, Physical and Mind, with a starting score of 20 each that can be augmented with certain powers. If either of these attributes ever hits 0, you are either dead or driven mad. As you make your way through the story, what actions you can take are largely dependent on what power you have. And what a great story it is! In the prologue, Rick meets a mysterious woman known as Killjoy, who seeks his services in order to hunt down the people who killed her father. Her father was a member of a secret society, and upon trying to leave this society once he realized their nefarious goals of raising demons from the underworld, he was hunted down and murdered. Killjoy is then immediately kidnapped right in front of you by this same society, and you decide it only right to try and rescue her. 

The whole adventure from here on out takes place within a run down apartment building in New York City, as you need to rescue Killjoy and then escape from the society and their evil leader, the Runemaster, who wishes to transform himself into a demon, as he feels it is his birthright, and then make Killjoy his bride. The artwork and associated atmosphere throughout the whole quest is wonderful. These comic adventures love the scantily clad ladies too, as Killjoy spends the majority of the story in a barely-there dress (not that I'm complaining!). The difficulty level I found perfect as well, and although the do-or-die roll can be frustrating, it's at least in your favour this time. It can also be mitigated with The Fist power, and therefore none of if felt totally unfair or out of place. 

Overall, this is fantastic. Not having his own comic book series, Rick Fortune is the first original character used in these adventures, and as such, allowed designer Pat Mills to perfectly tailor this character to the game system. The adventure combines both a fun and interesting design with a great story and incredibly immersive artwork. Easily the best adventure so far, and that's saying something as issue #1 contained 3 really good ones. Playing as a detective in the 1930's who investigates and battles the occult is perfect for a gamebook series and I hope to see more of this character. One question I have though.......what the heck does The Bat do? I never did find out, hopefully in a future issue I will! 

3 - "You are Slaine in Dragoncorpse" - Attempts to Beat: 2

Much like the A.B.C Warrior adventure that kicked off this issue, we have another retread of a game system from issue #1. Even more than that, we find ourselves playing as the exact same character from that earlier quest, as here we are once again Slaine the barbarian accompanied by our dwarven companion, Ukko. This time, Slaine travels with Ukko to his home village of "Scragfaggot Green" (yes, really) so that his dwarf friend can pay a visit to his wife, Pona, and their children. Upon arriving in the dwarven village however, we find it all but razed to the ground, with its inhabitants having fallen victim to a dragon attack. It seems that the dwarven miners in the village had dug too deep in their quest for gold, and had unwittingly entered the tomb of an undead dragon guarding his treasure. (Jeez, just how often DO dwarves dig too deep and kick up something like this?). The dwarves then foolishly stole from the dragon's treasure hoard, taking a shield that had 4 precious, and as it turns out, extremely magical and powerful gems set in it. This predictably led to the destruction of their village by the dragon. The dragon's minions (some goblins and a couple of other more powerful demonic followers) managed to retrieve the gems and returned them to the caverns, however they left the shield behind. To make matters worse, Ukko's wife Pona, was kidnapped by them and is to be made a sacrifice to the dragon. So it is that Slaine and Ukko set off into the caverns to re-unite the powerful stones with the shield, defeat the dragon and his followers, and rescue Pona. 

This all sounds like you will have a lot to do, but I found this adventure was just a bit too easy and it was over quicker than you might expect, even for these comic adventures. There are only 4 or so rooms in the caverns, and you find all the gems in a rapid fire manner one after the other. The encounters within these rooms were quite entertaining, I do have to give the adventure that much. There is also a strong humorous tone throughout the story, and this felt like it was a comedy gamebook adventure as much as it was a fantasy one. The game system, as mentioned above, is the same from the earlier Slaine quest. Some of the individual combats can actually be a bit tougher here, as your opponents often have a modifier added to their combat rolls (with the final enemy having a +5 added to his rolls!). However, you still have your +1 thanks to your trusty axe, and the gems that you find and add to your shield can also increase your combat modifier. Even so, the problem here is that my Warp Rating was always so much higher than my opponents that it was only a matter of time before I defeated them. The final Warp Rating check, where you need to have a certain amount once it's all said and done, or you die, was also set much lower in this quest than it was in the first outing, which also contributed to making this installment much easier. There are a couple of arbitrary deaths mixed in here, but with these comic adventures it really doesn't take very long in the slightest to start over and get back to where you were and choose the other option, so they aren't too frustrating. 

Overall, this was a good bit of fun, but was a step back from the previous Slaine adventure and didn't really hold up against the other stories from issue #1 either. I did enjoy most of the humor though, and the artwork was once again strong with a few gruesome deaths depicted in a suitably gory manner. Oh, and Pona was drawn in a skimpy bikini of course, gotta love it!  (SHE married Ukko??? No freaking way!) 

Ranking: Ok, so it became apparent to me as I was writing this review that giving each issue its own score was probably not the way to go. While issue #1 had 3 really good adventures, issue #2 had one that was sub-par, one that was great, and one that was ok. This basically ends up averaging out to the same score I gave issue #1. I have a feeling that barring an entire issue being either extraordinarily good, or terribly bad, there is a good chance all the issues will end up with a 3 Skull score. Therefore, I decided to rank all the adventures individually and post them at the top of the page which is probably how I should have done it from the beginning. Comparing the issues directly though, I would have to say that with issue #1 being a "high" 3 Skull score, issue #2 would be a "mid-range" 3 Skulls and I would put the first issue ahead of this one.  

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3. Diceman Issue #3 - 💀💀💀 Three Skulls

Attempts to beat: 10

So with Issue #3, we have no new game systems introduced in its 3 standalone adventures, although one of them does contain an extremely interesting addition to one of the earlier designs, which I will get to later. The 3 adventures in this issue include a military themed jungle mission, an Indiana Jones style battle with the Nazis, and a surreal Alice in Wonderland type escape quest. Reviewing each below:

1 - "You are Rogue Trooper in Killothon" - Attempts to Beat: 2

The issue kicks off with us playing as Rogue Trooper, a soldier in what I can only assume is a far future Earth, which is now a poisonous landscape where humans, animals, and plants alike have evolved to adapt to the much harsher and toxic conditions. The conditions are so harsh in fact, that natural human births are now unheard of, and human beings all now come into existence as clones. That is, until one couple somehow actually does manage to conceive a child naturally. We are then assigned a mission from our headquarters, known as Milli-com, to retrieve this family and escort them to safety, as our enemies in the north are now also aware of this child and plan to kidnap him for their own experiments. In order to complete our mission, we must lead them through the dangerous Hell-Hunt Jungle, where every animal and plant has evolved to the point of being extremely dangerous to humans. Oh, and the enemy northern soldiers will be hunting us every step of the way too. Tally ho! 

This is a fairly standard jungle-gamebook quest, with you having to make it from one side to the other while dealing with creatures such as monkeys, giant scorpions, and toxic plants. The adventure uses the same game system seen in the Slaine quests, having just renamed Warp Rating as Combat Rating instead. One thing that did have me baffled on my first attempt was what appeared to be strange disembodied voices speaking to Rogue Trooper throughout the adventure. It was only once I had played far enough that I realized it was actually his equipment (rifle, helmet, and backpack) that each had their own consciousness and would relay their thoughts to your character. This was entertaining in its own way, I just wish it had been explained in the prologue, as someone who is completely unfamiliar with Rogue Trooper comics, I had no clue what the heck was going on. 

Overall, it's ok, if one of the weaker adventures so far. The artwork is really good, and there are times where you have to think carefully about how to act. The relationship between Rogue Trooper and his equipment was also an interesting wrinkle. It's a bit of letdown then that the final Combat Rating check was set so low once again, making the adventure too easy, which has been a bit of problem throughout the series. Also, for an adventure that is supposed to be a "Killothon", there seemed to be a surprising lack of dice combat here. 

2 - "You are the Diceman in Dark Powers" - Attempts to Beat: 5

Here we have the second adventure in the series to star the Diceman, aka 1930's paranormal investigator Rick Fortune, and while not as strong as his first appearance, this story is still one of the best ones of the series so far. The story kicks off with an actual poem supposedly written by Adolf Hitler, which mentions "Wotan's oak in the quiet glade". We then learn that Rick has been invited to attend a celebration at the Externsteine Rocks, an actual rock formation located within the real world Teutoburg Forest in Germany. Rick is rightfully wary of travelling to what is now Nazi Germany, but there is no indication from the invitation that the Nazis are involved in the celebration, and furthermore he believes that the Extersteine Rocks may be the location of "Wotan's oak" as mentioned in the Hitler poem, and he wishes to investigate what this could mean. So it's off to Nazi Germany you go! What could go wrong? 

Rick isn't at the party for all of a few minutes when he realizes everyone there is in fact, a member of the Nazi party (surprise surprise!). And this opening section really has a strong Raiders of the Lost Ark vibe. From punching out SS officers (Heinrich Himmler no less!), to trading banter with your beautiful sidekick (Killjoy makes a return here), and racing to prevent the Nazis from getting their hands on a powerful mystical artifact (they want your Dice of Destiny), you can all but hear the famous Indiana Jones score in your head. The second half of the adventure veers away from this however and becomes more of a horror quest, as was seen in the first Diceman story, with Rick and Killjoy having to navigate underground caverns where they even get to encounter Wotan, the "hanged god" himself. 

(Note to self: When you are attending a party with dozens of guests, as soon as you realize you are the only one who is NOT a Nazi........GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE!)     

The game system uses the same one seen in the first Diceman adventure, with you rolling one die to see which of the 6 powers you will get, and needing to find your way to the end of the quest without either your Physical or Mind attributes dropping to zero. There are a couple of modifications I noticed though. One is that they have apparently tried to save space by putting many of the sections that they don't have or need artwork for on one page. This doesn't really make the adventure any longer, as this one still clocks in at 97 sections, but it allows for more elaborate and detailed drawings for some of the other panels. Another thing that struck me as an interesting attempt at innovation was that at one point you are asked what you want to do with your gun BEFORE you turn to the next section, with no options given, so presumably whatever you can think of is fair game. This doesn't really pay off though, because at the next section you are asked if you kept it, dropped it, or threw it across the room (why would you do that?). So what are you supposed to do if you got creative and came up with something that wasn't one of those options? I guess you have no choice but to pick one of those no matter what then, which kind of betrays the point of making you feel like anything you could think of was open to you. I believe this is also the only time in the adventure this mechanic is used, so I think they knew it didn't work too well.    

One of the things that struck me the most about the adventure was the artwork, which had a far more mature and refined edge to it than the first story had, or indeed any of the stories have had up until this point. There are also swastikas absolutely all over this comic, and I don't just mean being worn by the Nazis in the artwork either, but sometimes decorating the borders of the panels too, and it got me thinking how something like that might play in today's environment. 

Overall this is the second best adventure in the series so far, behind only the first Diceman adventure. The setting is fantastic, the artwork is highly atmospheric, the challenge is just about right, and the game system encourages replays. I also love when gamebooks use real world historical places, people and events as a backdrop, as it's a way to feel transported back in time. Another winner! (Although I STILL have no clue what "The Bat" does!)   

3 - "You are Torquemada Trapped in the Garden of Alien Delights" - Attempts to Beat: 3

Well.....it's difficult to know how to even to begin to describe this one. First off, this is the rare gamebook adventure where you get to play as a villain, and a truly evil one at that. Your character is the dictator, Torquemada, and if you played the Nemesis adventure from Issue #1, then you will be familiar with this nutcase. It's quite a bold move to have the player take on the role of a character who even describes himself as "the supreme bigot" and "the ultimate fascist". The story opens with Torquemada having been brought to justice by Nemesis the Warlock and sentenced to be transported to the Garden of Alien Delights, a nightmare world populated with all manner of strange aliens. As Torquemada despises all aliens, seeing them as deviants, this is a fate worse than death to him. It does however give him an opportunity to escape should he be able to find his way off this world. And that is the goal here, to somehow escape this prison. 

The game system at use here is the same one seen in the Slaine series, except in this case it is called your Purity Rating as opposed to Warp Rating. The idea here is that you need to increase your Purity Rating enough so that you will be able to pass the final Purity check when called upon, allowing you to escape the Garden. You are told in the prologue that "the only way out of the Garden is by being kind to aliens", which is meant to be a punishment to Torquemada who despises them. An interesting premise, but one that is completely ignored once the adventure begins, because you increase your Purity Rating much as you increased your Warp Rating in the Slaine adventures, that is, by killing things! Sure, there is the odd time when you can get a Purity bonus by doing something "honorable", but you gain even more by provoking and beheading most things you come across. And that is another thing, you are told to collect the severed heads (!) of any aliens you should defeat, so the instructions and the goals here seem to be at cross purposes. 

You begin the adventure by choosing in which random direction you want to head in order to try and find a way out, and between doing things such as kissing alien pig-women, to beheading large humanoid rabbits called Mr Floppy (no word on if he was late for a very important date), the story has a strong Alice in Wonderland feel. Everywhere Torquemada goes, there is random batshit crazy stuff going on. I'm not a big fan of these kinds of stories, as with very little internal logic apparent in this world, the stakes of the quest and the consequences of your choices feel greatly diminished. I find these kind of adventures very similar to finding out that it was "all just a dream" at the very end of a story. Both are highly unsatisfying. The adventure also allows you to revisit sections you have already been to. This poses the usual continuity problems in going through the exact same encounters over and over again. Whats worse, you could also use this to your advantage by continually mining the same section for more and more Purity points, not that this turns out to be necessary in the least.   

That all said, this adventure does have the big "extremely interesting addition" mentioned in the opening of the review to this issue. In this quest, you are given a bag with 3 empty inventory slots when you begin. Similar to the Lone Wolf series, you can fill the slots with items that you pick up along the way, some of which may be helpful and some of which may be totally useless, and you can only carry 3 at any one time so you will need to decide what to drop if you want to pick up something else and all your slots are already full. The really interesting part though, is that you decide what to pick up on your own based upon what is drawn in the panels. You are never explicitly given an option to pick something up, but you can pick up whatever you can see drawn within the comic. (I assume it has to be able to fit in your bag). For example, the very first panel of the adventure shows such items as a harp, a carrot, a fish, a watch, a candle, a playing card, ice skates, and several other random items. What you want to pick up to begin with is up to you and this provides for a nice bit of trial and error within the adventure. Or at least, it should have, as I found that while a couple of the items may come in handy, none of them seem to be required in the slightest to beat the quest, and the vast majority of them are red herrings anyway. The final Purity check at the end of the adventure is once again set so low that Im not sure how you wouldn't pass it should you make it that far. The real danger in failing comes from arbitrary instant death, as the choices you are given are often completely random in nature, much like the encounters themselves. The artwork is very good, and it needs to be with the inventory system at work here, but strong art has really become par for the course for the series at this point.  

Overall, this isnt one of the better adventures in the series. The story is too random and weird to be taken very seriously, and maybe that was the idea they were going for, and if so, it's not really for me. The inventory idea is great, and was the main takeaway for me from this adventure, it's just unfortunately not put to very good use here at all. I hope we see this implemented better in a future story. 

Ranking: So the thought I had in my ranking for Issue #2 proved the same again. With one really good adventure, and two just ok ones, we arrive at another 3 Skull rating. Comparing it to the other issues overall though, Id have to say this was another small step back from the previous issue. 

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4. Diceman Issue #4 - 💀💀💀💀💀 Five Skulls

Attempts to beat: 9

Fantastic! This issue of the series switches things up by giving us only two adventures as opposed to the usual three, allowing the stories here the use of over 150 sections each, and boy does it ever pay off. There are no new game systems introduced here, and in fact we are playing as what has proven to be the two most prominent characters in the series, with new adventures featuring the Diceman and Slaine the Barbarian. Reviewing each adventure below:

1 - "Diceman in Bitter Streets" - Attempts to Beat: 5

Playing as 1930's investigator Rick Fortune for the third time in the series, this story kicks off with a great feeling of atmospheric dread. The city of New York is currently in the grip of a serial killer known as the "Beast of the Bronx", who has been ripping apart and partially devouring his victims. Rick of course knows it is the demon Astragal who is responsible for the killings, as he has completely lost control of him, with the fiend no longer obeying the mystical dice that Rick holds. Even worse, Astragal seems intent on framing Rick for the murders, as the story opens with the demon leaving a fresh victim in Rick's apartment for the police to find. It is thus up to Rick to evade the police, find Astragal, and discover why he has been seemingly released from his chain.  

The adventure uses the same system seen in the previous Diceman stories, with you rolling one die to determine which power you will have. The added difficulty here being that a roll of 3 for Astragal serves no use for obvious reasons. The power of Lightning doesnt seem to have any bearing on the adventure either, and the powers you really want are either The Web or The Key. So, the uses of the various powers are dialed back a bit here, which initially would seem like a bad thing. Fortunately though, the adventure more than makes up for it by including a currency system whereby you start with a certain amount of money (more of which can be acquired at certain spots in the story), which you will need later to buy weapons and equipment. It's not cut and dry though, as situations arise where depending on how you choose to spend your money can result in either the gain or loss of Physical or Mind points, meaning you might need to adjust your strategy on the fly depending on how well you are currently doing on that playthrough. 

The increased number of sections in the adventure also allows for much more things to try and experiment with, especially in the first half of the story where you are attempting to evade the police. Failure to avoid capture isnt necessarily the end for you though, as should you be nabbed by the cops you must then attempt to avoid prosecution lest you face the electric chair. This death penalty sequence is actually quite grim and depressing, and indeed the whole adventure carries with it the more adult and gritty tone that was seen in the previous Diceman quest, and outside of the demon Astragal, the story is told in a much more realistic manner than any of the quests we have seen so far. Rick must additionally navigate the world of seedy gangsters in a well realized depression era New York City, and the adventure incorporates a few sections which involve careful thought and study of the artwork before deciding upon a course of action. If there are any negatives to be found, I would say it is in the carryover of the game mechanic whereby you are occasionally asked to choose what you wish to do before turning to the next section, where you are then listed the options of what you could have picked. This didnt really work that well before and still doesn't, as thinking outside the box is rarely rewarded, and after the first time doing this, you will know exactly what all your "real" options are. Still, this is a minor quibble and doesn't detract in any meaningful way from the adventure.  

Overall this was excellent and contains many places with which to experiment and employ strategy. The story also delivers another deeply atmospheric Diceman tale. I would rank this as the second best adventure in the magazine series so far, surpassed only just by..... 

2 - "You are Slaine in The Ring of Danu" - Attempts to Beat: 4

The expanded section length works to great effect here as well, as it allows us the deepest adventure in the range so far. Playing once again as series stalwart Slaine, and accompanied still by our dwarf companion Ukko, this story sees Slaine attempting to become the Sacred King of his barbarian tribe. In order to do this, he must travel to the mysterious "Otherworld" and obtain a magical ring from the Earth goddess, Danu. The goddess isn't just going to hand us the ring without us proving our worth however, and we are told we must travel through the Three Aspects of Danu, which represents the three ages of woman, these being The Maiden of Spring, The Woman of Summer, and the Hag of Winter (not very flattering to the older ladies that last one I must say!). The ring is currently broken up into 3 segments, so we must therefore find all 3 segments if we wish to escape the Otherworld and be named Sacred King of our tribe. 

The design of the adventure is fantastic, with Slaine and Ukko travelling through the ages of Spring, Summer and Winter and dealing with various challenges in each. There are many options to experiment with all throughout the quest, and the adventure relies even more heavily on studying the artwork for clues before making decisions than even the previous Diceman story did. This is an excellent idea and is used to very strong effect here. The usual Slaine game system returns, with your Warp Rating acting as your main attribute. Added here however is a "Warp Spasm". This is akin to a berserker rage, and during the adventure Slaine can use this only once as an auto-win against an enemy in combat. The real challenge here though lies not in the combats, but in charting your path through the quest that sees you acquire all segments of the correct ring. I say correct ring, because there is a really great twist here whereby you can acquire segments from both gold AND silver rings as you move through the Otherworld, not knowing which is the real Ring of Danu. This results in some really fun map making as you plot out where each of the segments can be found, and attempt to determine which of them you really need to be going for.  

Money plays a role here as well, as you start the quest with 15 gold pieces and can spend it on such things as bribing creatures or hiring mercenaries. It's not done to nearly as good effect as the Diceman story in this same issue, but still it's always nice to have some more options to experiment with. There is also a fair amount of humor included here, but unlike the previous Slaine adventure, it doesn't dominate the story. And while I mostly enjoyed the laughs in that previous Slaine quest, here I think they got the balance just right. The story also ends on a very cool "oh crap" Twilight Zone style moment, where even though you have won, it is heavily implied you may have won more than you bargained for!

As with the Diceman adventure, there are some minor quibbles. The "pick what you want to do before going to the next section" mechanic is employed here again, and there is also a strange moment where even if you spotted something in the artwork that you were supposed to, you were somehow also supposed to know that you would double bluff your way out of this particular situation (along the idea of a "knowing that you know that he knows that you know" kind of thing which could have you going in circles forever) , which results in your decision being a 50-50 proposition in any case then regardless of what you may have spotted. Again, it's minor, but the designers try to be a bit too clever here.  

Boy it's close, but this just edges out the Diceman quest in this very same issue for best adventure so far. I think the design here was a bit more involved and interesting then that story, and the artwork edges it out too, as the art here is wonderful. This is also far and away the adventure that is most similar to a Fighting Fantasy gamebook, which definitely works in its favor.

Overall this issue shows what expanding upon the section numbers can achieve with these comic adventures. It's a shame they weren't all this length, or even longer. Wonderful stuff and easily the best issue in the series. My theory that all the issues would end up with 3 Skulls is shattered here, as it's 5 Skulls for this issue. And while admittedly it's tough to compare these comic style games with the text based ones (and you also might need to enjoy comics as much as I do to get the same joy out of it), I had an absolute blast with this issue. 

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5. Diceman Issue #5 - 💀💀💀 Three Skulls

Attempts to beat: 12 

For some reason, this issue returns to providing 3 adventures as opposed to the 2 longer ones seen in the previous edition, despite how well that worked. They seem to be hedging their bets a bit on this front however as one of the adventures comes in at over 170 sections, making this the issue with the most total sections so far. Lets see how well they made use of all these by reviewing each adventure below:

"You are Rogue Trooper in Space Zombies" - Attempts to Beat: 3

Here we are back to playing as dull-as-dirt Rogue Trooper, an elite GI who reports to the military organization Milli-com on a distant future Earth. His mission this time has an "Apocalypse Now" feel to it, as he is sent into outer space to track down a General who has gone rogue and is conducting illegal genetic experiments within a deserted space freighter. In a nice tie-in to the first Rogue Trooper adventure from Issue #3, the General has additionally kidnapped the same family we rescued in that quest, and is also holding them on the freighter. So our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to rescue the family and take out the General. 

That's actually a pretty good opening, but it's all downhill from there. While I wont go so far as to call it bad, it's certainly the most boring of all the Diceman adventures so far. The Rogue Trooper himself is such a blank slate and not interesting in the slightest. His sentient equipment fares better in that regard as they can come up with some good quips, but that's still far from any kind of characterization. Probably the worst part is the variety of the encounters you face in the adventure. Zombies, zombies, and more zombies are the order of the day here. Oh, sorry, SPACE zombies. (I guess that is supposed to make them more interesting?) The final confrontation with the General also leaves a lot to be desired on the excitement front, and he really doesn't end up making for an interesting villain. 

The authors must have realized they goofed up by not explaining your equipment in the previous Rogue Trooper adventure, as here we get an introduction to why exactly your rifle, backpack, and helmet all have a consciousness and speak to you. This would have been appreciated back in Issue #3 but I guess better late than never. It also just occurred to me now, but why does our character go by the name Rogue Trooper anyway? There doesn't appear to be anything remotely "rogue" about him. He dutifully follows his orders as handed to him by his bosses at Milli-com. I suppose Straight-Laced Soldier didn't have the same ring to it. 

The game mechanics here follow basically the same ones laid out in the previous Rogue Trooper adventure, with the exception of an added statistic called Hero Points. You gain these as you go along by doing things considered particularly heroic, and you will need to have a certain amount of them by the end game in order to get the best possible conclusion to the story. This didn't appear to be much of a problem though, as just not acting like a coward will likely see you acquire enough of these to see you get the ideal finish to the quest. Probably the worst part about the design is how random and arbitrary many of the "correct" choices seem to be whenever you are confronted with several options. This is at odds with the majority of these comic adventures which usually reward careful thought and study of the situation. 

Definitely one of the lower rated comic adventures. The artwork here I found very uninspired as well and really does the story no favors. I slot it just ahead of the super short ABC Warrior quest from Issue #2 because at least there is SOME meat on the bone here as opposed to that story. This is still a pretty big step back though after the excellent adventures from Issue #4.  

"You are Ronald Reagan in Twilight's Last Gleaming" - Attempts to Beat: 5

The design here? Brilliant! The story? Probably an acquired taste. You have to give full marks for creativity here, as this adventure puts you in the expensive shoes of Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, and tasks you with the ultimate goal of trying to avoid nuclear war (and the resulting global annihilation) with the Russians circa 1986 when this magazine was published. Before you get to that apocalyptic stage though, you will need to guide Reagan through such events as the war in Nicaragua, an arms summit with Russian premier Mikael Gorbachev, and a state banquet complete with fellow leader of the day, Margaret Thatcher. 

The game mechanics here are really ingenious. You begin with 3 attributes: Popularity, Sanity, and Tension. As you go through the adventure, you make a great many decisions about how to handle each situation that occurs. Each decision results in your attributes either going up or down to various degrees, and you are eventually tested on all 3 close to the end of the story, with failure leading to nuclear war and loss of the game (not to mention the planet). Some of your attributes you will need to have a high score in, and some you will need a low score, but you don't know which is which until you get to that particular point in the story. Even once I had determined what scores I needed in order to pass all the checks for my attributes, I still had to carefully plan out my actions according to what I had learned about each decision in prior playthroughs, and those actions could vary depending upon some of the random rolls I had been getting up to that point in the current attempt. For instance at one point you can choose what popular movie you would like to quote when addressing Gorbachev, with various outcomes to your attributes resulting from your choice, and as previously stated, there many decisions like this to be made throughout. Thus, there is a surprisingly deep level of strategy required here for such a comedy heavy adventure.   

The artwork here is fantastic and is very much in the style of that found within the pages of Mad Magazine, with everything drawn to comedy effect and with many little things going on in the background of most of the panels that encourage you to take your time with them and have a look for some well hidden jokes. I have to say though, Reagan is definitely portrayed as a war-mongering senile idiot, and Thatcher doesn't come off in a positive light either. I'm pretty apolitical myself, so it really made no never mind to me, but anyone who holds these figures in high regard (and I believe Reagan actually had, and still has in retrospect, a fairly high approval rating), may not appreciate the commentary. And therein lies the problem with bringing politics into gamebook adventures. You are likely to turn off, and maybe even outright insult, up to half your audience. More to this point, and what I found REALLY strange, is that the authors seem to acknowledge this, as in the intro to the issue they warn the readers that they may wish to skip this adventure due to its political nature. This adventure being released when the Cold War was still raging may have had something to do with this, but I never thought Id see a gamebook author advising readers to possibly skip their game, yet here it is. They go on to say that an element of physical risk is involved when criticizing world leaders. I took this last bit as tongue-in-cheek, but seeing as how this would go on to be the final issue of Diceman magazine, maybe that was prophetic! Still, this story is so far over the top into farce that I would like to think that even Reagan and Thatcher supporters would not take this seriously, although that might have been a tougher sell back in 1986. 

This is one of the better adventures in the series by design alone. With several stats to micromanage and an incredible amount of things to try for a 111 section game, there is a heck of a lot to experiment with here. The story however probably isn't going to be to a lot of people's tastes. That said, this is definitely recommended as another example of what these comic adventures are capable of when thinking outside the box. 

"You are Diceman in Murder One" - Attempts to Beat: 4

I come to the conclusion of the Diceman magazine adventures with this final entry, which sees us one last time playing as Rick Fortune, paranormal investigator in depression era New York City. In this tale, Rick is approached by the police and the district attorney to see if he will accept the task of guarding an important witness for the state. This witness intends to testify against "Lady Die", a female crime lord and our adversary from the last Rick Fortune adventure. The reason why the police come to Rick, is because several other potential witnesses have all turned up dead, with most of them having committed suicide. The police believe there are supernatural forces at play and give you full discretion to protect their last witness, a mobster named Art Drukman, as you see fit. If you can see that he lives long enough to get to the witness stand to testify, you collect your reward of $1000 from the state and win the adventure. 

The adventure is really quite well laid out in a murder mystery sort of fashion, except without the murder. You decide to protect Drukman by holing up in a suite on the top floor of a New York Hotel. Throughout the story, you come across various other guests of the hotel, all with their own secrets and motivations, and must attempt to determine which one of them is working for Lady Die in an attempt to assassinate Drukman. You also have 4 stats that you have to manage. The first two stats, Physical and Mind, work in the usual manner (if either fall to zero the game is over). The third stat, Spirit Level, is a indication of how much paranormal energy is currently present in the hotel. Because you know whoever the assassin is, they will attempt to use supernatural means to kill Drukman, the higher this Spirit Level stat goes, the more dangerous being in the hotel becomes. The fourth and final stat is Drukman's Mind, this has a starting value of 20, and drops a certain amount for every stress inducing event that he is present for. If this ever drops to zero, then Drukman has gone insane and is no longer able to testify, and you thus lose the game. Juggling all 4 stats can be quite tricky, but along with the murder mystery style aspect, is probably the best part of the adventure, as tradeoffs between the stats often need to be carefully considered should you wish to be successful. 

We also learn here that Rick has finally discovered what "The Bat" dice power does. Using this power allows Rick to determine which of the other powers he wishes to employ himself as opposed to them being decided randomly. This introduces something new to the game system, as now we are able to pick our own powers at the start of the story. We can even choose to have multiple powers at once, though this is extremely risky as it comes with an associated increase in the Spirit Level stat to begin the adventure. 

In section count, this is also the longest Diceman adventure, clocking in at a whopping 173 sections. Despite that, it actually felt a bit shorter than the adventures from Issue #4, as many sections were used up in investigating the various suspects staying at the hotel. You are regularly given many options as to how you would like to interact with them, but many of your choices all seem to lead to the same result, which is a bit of a letdown. When it comes time to decide who you think the assassin is, the choice seemed a bit random to me, with the story expecting you to have figured it out based upon spotting something contained in one of the panels. I usually greatly appreciate this, but in this case you would really have to be both eagle-eyed and make quite a bit of a leap in logic to see what they were hinting at. Still, in any mystery type game you are going to have to leave some ambiguity otherwise most players will deduce who the culprit is too easily. I can appreciate the fine line here and ultimately was mostly satisfied with how the mystery played out. It was a shame though that Lady Die herself never makes an appearance, even though she is described in the prologue as our "arch enemy". In the same vein, Killjoy, our sidekick from the first two Diceman adventures doesnt appear here either, and this is the second such adventure in a row where she is absent, having not appeared in the "Bitter Streets" story, which is another shame. The story here also fumbles the climax somewhat, and ends in a bit of an anti-climactic manner. Also, this issue seems like it might have been somewhat rushed, because as with the Rogue Trooper story, the artwork here is a step back to what we have become accustomed to.

This is a strong adventure, but is lacking in some of the excitement and wonder seen in a couple of the earlier Diceman quests. The managing of your stats along with the mystery and horror elements make up for the underwhelming art and somewhat disappointing conclusion, and at least help to see these comic adventures go out on a positive note. It's just too bad this is the last we will see of these Diceman adventures (one can only hope these will be resurrected at some point in the future!)  

As a whole, I would say this issue is back to the 3 Skulls seen in the majority of the previous issues. If something better had been used in place of the Rogue Trooper story this likely would have seen 4 Skulls, as the Ronald Reagan and Rick Fortune quests are great to very good. I think ranking the individual adventures as I have done at the top of the page makes more sense, but for completions sake I would rank the Issues themselves as below. What a pity no one else decided to pick up where this magazine left off, as it really is a fabulous idea. 

Rankings:

1 - Issue #4 - 💀💀💀💀💀 5 Skulls

2 - Issue #5 - 💀💀💀 3 Skulls

3 - Issue #1 - 💀💀💀 3 Skulls

4 - Issue #2 - 💀💀💀 3 Skulls

5 - Issue #3 - 💀💀💀 3 Skulls