Fantasy Questbook

                                                    
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1. Starflight Zero - Score = 💀💀💀  - Three Skulls 

Attempts to Beat: 1 (sort of)

This series was a late addition to my list of gamebooks, because I'm not really sure if they ARE in fact gamebooks, but for the sake of completeness I figured "what the hell", and decided to give them a go. Even after completing this first book (a science-fiction entry, which seems like an odd choice for the first book of a series entitled "Fantasy Questbook"), I'm still not sure what to make of it, and I found this entry to be of mixed results, albeit with the good ultimately outweighing the bad. The first thing I noticed is that despite its large page size, the book itself is quite thin. That said, authors David Fickling and Perry Hinton get it off on the right foot though, with a tense introduction explaining how a fleet of Dark Ships has recently come forth from deep space, and has been destroying or enslaving planets and outposts along the fringes of the known inhabited galaxy. It has now conquered almost the whole galaxy itself, with only 1 of the 23 worlds that make up the confederation of Free Planets still holding out against them. Those who have managed to escape the conquered planets now convene on this last remaining free world, Caldoran, where a last ditch plan is conceived in an attempt to destroy the Dark Ships. It has been determined that the Ships are powered by something known as the "Black Light", which is able to transmit its powerful energy instantly to each of the Ships in the enemy fleet. (Just don't shine it around a hotel room). The power source for the Black Light has been located at the far end of the galaxy, and in typical "blow up one thing to defeat the whole enemy fleet" style, it is decided that a selection of the eight best remaining pilots, of which we are one, will join together in a group to be called "Starflight Zero", and make a mad dash to the area in question in a final effort to destroy the Black Light power source and end the invasion. The introduction also gives us a brief bio of each of the pilots (except for ourselves), with several of them being of different alien races, and each with their own strengths and unique starships, which all appear to be one-person fighter craft, as there is no mention of any crews here. I enjoyed this opening very much, and it made me want to jump right into the game. 

The rules of the game come next, and we are told that to make it to the location that houses the Black Light power source, we must travel through 13 different sectors, each of which is represented by a large two-page illustration in the book. Each illustration is meant to show one of the sectors we are passing through from the perspective of our ship's main viewscreen, and also shows the "dashboard" beneath the screen which contains various technical information and readouts regarding the status of our ship. In order to complete a sector and pass on to the next, we must first use various means to uncover 6 different numbers within each sector and use them to find a coded message. Arriving at these numbers in each sector involves the following: 

1. Sub-space reading: This number is very simple to get, as at the corner of each illustration there is something along the lines of a "star chart" laid out in a small grid format, showing your ship's route through that particular sector. You compare the layout of the stars (marked by X's) shown on this grid to the complete and large 28x42 square Galaxy Star Grid inside the back cover of the book to determine exactly where in the galaxy you currently are. There is a blue dot shown on that sector's small star chart, and once you have found your location on the larger Star Grid, you look down to the number corresponding to the X-axis where the blue dot is located in order to arrive at the Sub-space number. The book makes this number a little to easy to find in my opinion, and not only that, but each following sector is right next to the previous one on the Star Grid, which makes sense as you are travelling through the Galaxy, but you then know exactly where to look each time. 

2. Hyper-space reading: The exact same process as the Sub-space reading above, except you look along to the number on the Y-axis this time. 

3. Damage report: This number might be even easier to get. There is a five-pointed star printed on each illustration, colour coded in red and orange, which is meant to indicate how much damage your ship is currently taking, and all you need to do is look up the values on the damage indicator at the back of the book and add up the highlighted totals based on the colours shown. If you can add 3 or 4 numbers together, this really shouldn't take you more than a few seconds. Although I suppose if you are colour blind then this could pose a real problem. 

4. Danger Level - Far and away (for me at least) the toughest number to get. So, also at the back of the book are small drawings of all the various types of Dark Ships you will be encountering as you make your way across the galaxy. There are a handful of different types of enemy ships, each with their own numerical "danger rating". The tough part is, you have to scour that sector's illustration and determine not only how many enemy ships are shown there, but also what types they are, so that you can add up all their corresponding numbers. The ship pictures at the back of the book are only shown in profile, but in the illustrations they can, and are, shown from many different angles, and with several of them looking very much alike, it can be a challenge to discern which enemy ship is of which type. The artist here also is trying to hide some of these ships from you (all black ships on a black background?), making it something along the lines of a "Galactic Where's Waldo?". As if that wasn't enough, there is also a rule beneath the ship drawings which states that any enemy ship that is damaged only counts as a 1 to its danger rating. Determining if a ship is "damaged" or not seemed open to interpretation to me in several cases, and I'm sure this is the number I got wrong the most during the game.

5. Fuel - Yet another easy one to get. For this, you check how fast your ship is travelling through that sector on your speedometer and consult a chart at the back of the book, which shows how much fuel you have used based upon that speed. You start the book with 50 units of fuel, and subtract how much fuel you have used in that sector to arrive at the needed number. You keep decreasing this Fuel value with each passing sector, unless you arrive at a sector where you have stopped to refuel, in which case the book just gives you the value of 50 as your number for that sector with no computing needed, and that is your new number to use in the next sector calculation.

6. Pilot Ability - Far and away the most fun number to get. This is sort of the "riddle" of the sector, and will ask you a question with a numerical answer about something currently transpiring in that illustration. This could be something such as asking you which ship from your own fleet is missing (and like the enemy ships, you also have small pictures of the eight ships in your fleet as well) and you would have to figure out from the hectic space-battle illustration which of your comrades cannot be seen. Most of these actually involved some thought and/or study of the illustration, and I found this to be the most enjoyable aspect of the game.     

Once you have your 6 different numbers from the above, you then need to use these numbers on the computer readout shown below your viewscreen to get the 6 word message for that sector. This computer readout is a paragraph of flavour text describing what is happening to you and your comrades at that moment, and you use your 6 numbers to extract the message from this readout by counting along the words in the paragraph for each number. (eg. if your Sub-space reading was 25, you would take the 25th word from the readout, then repeat for the next 5 values). Rinse and repeat this process for each of the 13 sectors, then join each of the 6 word strings together in the order you did them, and you will eventually arrive at a 78 word long message on what to do next. And oh boy....what a message!

Before I get to the final step of the quest though, I would like to talk about my experience travelling through the 13 sectors of the adventure. When I first began, I was having a grand old time, and for the first 6 or 7 sectors, I thought this was well on its way to at least a 4 Skull score. The book was doing a wonderful job of conveying a mad dash to the other end of the galaxy, with enemies and planets whizzing past my viewscreen as our small but determined group made one last gasp effort to save the day. With the only advantage our ships having over our enemies being speed, then stealth be damned! Shortly after the halfway point however, the law of diminishing returns began to set in, as I found myself doing almost the exact same things each sector. Not only that, but the story itself almost becomes non-existent. Perhaps not surprisingly, your comrades begin to drop off one by one as they fall victim to the Dark Ships, leaving you as the only one left by the time you make it to the final sector. But I found myself not even caring, because there is no sense of camaraderie built up among the eight of you, with only the odd bit of radio chatter contained in the flavour text thrown in here and there. And with the possible exception of your fellow pilot who sacrifices themselves so that the rest of you can continue on, there is almost no attention paid at all to your comrade's deaths. Heck, I was almost at the end of the mission before I realized that the leader of our group had been killed 3 sectors ago. (Wait....she's dead??). The illustrations by Peter Andrew Jones, which really need to take centre stage in a book such as this, are certainly colourful and striking, but I also found them to be cluttered, vague, and sometimes messy. This isn't a slight against the illustrator though, because they are intended to be this way in order to make it a challenge in uncovering all the hidden things you need to find within them. One of my bigger problems with them was that the computer readout underneath your viewscreen is printed not only quite small, but also right across the inner binding of the book, straddling both pages. This made it not only hard to read, but could make it a pain when you needed to count off the words to find your coded message, as I found myself often wondering if there was a word in the crease or just a space. (And sometimes you need to count off as many as 50 words to get the one you need....yikes!). 

Anyway, back to the final 78 word long message that you arrive at after solving the puzzles in all 13 sectors. The good news is, you don't actually need to solve all 78 of them, as if you manage to get at least 5 out of the 6 words in each sector, you can likely deduce what the missing word should be (and you might even get away with only solving 4 out of the 6). But man oh man, once I had completed this message, I couldn't believe what I was seeing, as what it tells you to do next is INSANE!. This message gives specific instructions on how to draw out a picture using the 28x42 Star Grid at the back of the book. On the surface of it, that sounds like a great idea. The problem is, each individual grid space needs to be filled in using a VERY SPECIFIC COLOUR!. It tells you how to find the colours that you will need to use to fill in each individual space, which are hidden in the book, but seriously, am I really expected to go over each of the 1176 squares one at a time and fill each of them in a specific colour? And once again, if you have any difficulty with colour blindness, forget it. To make it somehow even worse, it's not like you can just say "oh, these ones are green", because apparently there are different shades of green to use as well! (Along with different shades of many other colours). So just what does this picture show when finally drawn out? I can't tell you, because I ain't doing it! Has anyone else out there actually beaten this book and drawn this picture? I would think someone, somewhere, has. I will take a guess that it is a final picture of your ship destroying the Black Light power source, but it could be a big middle finger for all I know, which would be appropriate here I think. Talk about crashing and burning on the endgame of your adventure. If I ever get a full week to do nothing but work on it, and can pick up a big box of crayons in order to do so, maybe I will come back and give this a go sometime. Or maybe not.  

If this book had given me an anthropomorphic rabbit wingman called Peppy? Instant extra Skull.

       

Ranking: I'm not sure if it's the first of its kind, but I was incredibly impressed by the originality of this book. This was another example of a dice-less gamebook that I thought did indeed work, and had the potential to work even better. The story, what little of it you get after you begin, has a very "Mass Effect" meets "Star Fox" feel to it, for those who may have played those video game series. The gameplay, while exciting and new at first, did start to overstay its welcome before I reached the end. For such a thin book, there was an impressive amount of work put into this though, and it's just too bad that it does an absolute faceplant with that ending, which must go down as one of the more tedious endgames you will ever find. Overall, I did enjoy it (although the score might have been lower had I actually gone through with that final picture), and I am intrigued to see where the authors can take this concept next.  

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2. The Path of Peril - Score = 💀💀💀 1/2 - Three and a Half Skulls

Attempts to Beat: 1

"Asps. Very dangerous. You go first." If you know what classic 80's adventure movie that line is from, then you might enjoy this book. Yep, that's right, break out your fedora and whip, because it's time for some unabashed Indiana Jones-style action. I'm not complaining mind you, far from it in fact, as this is the theme I often mention I would like to see more of in gamebooks, as I believe it lends itself to them perfectly. The story here starts out a bit odd though, as we begin by answering a wanted ad in the newspaper for a "treasure hunter". Upon travelling to the indicated location, we meet up with a lawyer who explains to us that the famous explorer and treasure hunter, Edmund Mallory, (and in this book, "treasure hunter" is apparently synonomous with "guy who robs indigenous tribes of their precious valuables")  has recently been found murdered in his study. So.....Edmund Mallory eh? Don't you love it when two famous people's names are mashed together to give us a wholly unobvious fictional name? I did admittedly roll my eyes at this at first, but once I began playing the game, it did somewhat fit into the style of the adventure. Mind you, if an associate of his named George Hillary had ever shown up, that might have been a bridge too far. Anyway, a priceless and sacred jewel, the Bloodstone, which Mallory recently stole on an expedition to the Far East (I'm guessing Nepal), is also now missing. There was evidence Mallory knew his death was imminent, as he left instructions to have the newspaper ad placed when it occurred, and for whoever answered it to receive several items of his (a letter, map, notes, and diary), as within them are hidden the secret in locating the Bloodstone without triggering the curse that befell him when he obtained it. I feel like your character should have been a relative, or at least a friend, of Mallory's, as opposed to some rando who answered a newspaper ad, but as awkward as that seemed, it was a minor quibble which was completely forgotten once I took up the challenge of solving the puzzle Mallory left behind, and began playing the adventure. 

After all these years, I just realized something....was Indiana the bad guy in the opening sequence of "Raiders of the Lost Ark"?

 "Stop that thief! He tried to make off with our retirement fund!"

After that opening, the book contains 13 illustrations, the first of which is Mallory's ransacked study (with his dead body still laying there), followed by 12 two-page pictures which depict the 12 "perils" that you will have to get through should you wish to locate the Bloodstone, which has presumably been returned to the location where Mallory originally found it by whatever creature killed him. These perils depict such adventure movie feats as crossing a rickety rope bridge, or making a boat escape down a crocodile infested river as natives fire arrows at you. They aren't all quite as exciting as those, but the point being that each one colourfully details some sort of adventurous danger that must be overcome as you travel through jungles, deserts, and mountains in your quest for the jewel. As mentioned before, Mallory has learned of an item, that should you be able to construct, will ward off the curse of the Bloodstone and allow you to take it without suffering his fate. Mind you, you still need to get through all the perils. Constructing this item is the key to the adventure, and involves several steps which use the map, notes, and diary that Mallory left you, along with information hidden within the illustrations. These steps involve:

1. Putting the perils in order - In what I thought was an interesting move, the illustrations depicting the 12 perils are not shown in the order in which you must do them. It is up to you to first determine their order by using the map, which depicts the route Mallory took in finding the Bloodstone (in classic dotted-line fashion), and only shows 12 hieroglyphs along the route. You must then figure out the order of the illustrations by matching each hieroglyph to an artefact found strewn about in the picture of Mallory's study, as he took something as a treasure from each location (boy, this guy had some sticky fingers!). Once you have the order of the illustrations down, you are then ready to move on to the next step.      

2. Decoding the hidden message - Once you have completed the above, you can now use Mallory's notes to pull out a coded message. These notes are shown at the back of the book, and are also not in any particular order. You will need to carefully read each one of the 12 individual notes, and match up each of their descriptions to the individual peril to which they belong. Once this is done, you use a clue contained within Mallory's original letter to pull a word from each note, thus giving you the instructions on how to assemble the required item needed to stave off the curse. 

3. Identifying the required pieces to construct the item - I found the above two steps to be fairly easy and straightforward, but still entertaining. It started to get slightly more difficult here, as we now need to go back and scour the illustrations for a secret symbol that will allow us to identify the correct pieces that make up the needed item. We will have no doubt already noticed that within each of the 12 illustrations there are three different "jigsaw puzzle" pieces (made up from Mallory's torn up diary) scattered around it. However, only one of these puzzle pieces is the correct one to use, with the other two acting as red herrings. The instructions from the hidden message tell us how to locate the correct pieces, and there was a nice mix in the difficulty in finding these. A few of them took me quite a while of poring over every nook and cranny of the picture so that my eyes were starting to go fuzzy. The upside to this though was I began noticing some nice little touches going on in the background in some of them, including what I'm pretty sure was a murder about to take place in the back of the illustration that depicted the bazaar scene. (And discovering this reminded me of the great 1966 film "Blowup"). Once we finally have our 12 correct jigsaw puzzle pieces, one from each picture, we are ready to move on to the final step.

4. Assembling the item - Oh boy. So here is where the difficulty ramped up considerably, at least for me. While the steps described above took me only a couple of shorter play sessions to complete, this one alone took me much longer. First of all, we are told to "trace" out the puzzle pieces, which I attempted to do but which proved to be a nightmare. The puzzle pieces are an off-white colour, and I found these very difficult to see in trying to trace through a regular sheet of paper. Not to mention there are very small symbols along the borders of each piece, which you are most definitely going to need. After botching this process a couple of times, I eventually went with the decision to just photo-copy the required pieces, and then cut them out of the copied sheets. Not everyone will have access to a photo-copier though, which might make this more difficult for you unless you have either thinner paper, or better eyesight, than I do. So once you have your cut-out puzzle pieces, you now need to put them together to form the shape of the required item. And this was far and away the most time consuming part of the whole adventure for me. Firstly, I spent more time than I care to mention thinking that the writing on the puzzle pieces (which again, are torn out pieces of  Mallory's diary), had something to do with the solution. I thought that surely the words must somehow line up, or at least they were a clue as to the required orientation of each piece. That was mistake number one of mine. My second mistake was in believing that all the small symbols located along the borders of each piece must line up exactly. And again, I spent a great deal of time trying to make all the pieces line up this way, and without coming to a solution, I started to believe I was going to have to call it quits. Thankfully though before I did, I had my eureka moment, when I realized that the symbols along each border only had to match up somewhere along the border with its connecting piece, and not necessarily directly across from it. Once I realized this, along with remembering examples of the required item shown throughout the book that gave me some idea as to the shape of what I was building (because for the longest time I was putting the puzzle together upside down as it turns out), I was eventually able to put all the pieces together, revealing the required artefact needed so that I may steal procure the Bloodstone without having to worry about the curse. I do admit to a bit of self satisfaction after having done this, even though I'm sure there are players out there who were able to do this quicker than me. Even what you are instructed to do with this item after putting it together was a nice touch, and made for a great final scene of the adventure.      

In closing, I must say that I found the illustrations here to be top notch, and illustrator Rachel Burkett should be commended. My biggest complaint about the adventure, which is the second in a row from authors David Fickling and Perry Hinton, would be the lack of context or explanation on how we managed to overcome these perils. We are shown a great snapshot of each, but for some of the most exciting aspects of it, we are left in the dark. How the heck did we get out of that rope bridge situation for example? I would have loved to have find out how that one played out. And those horned warriors emerging from the mist, what is the backstory around that? Mallory's notes, being small snippets, don't really tell you all that much, and I think a page of descriptive text on how each peril was beaten would have added even more to the immersion. The final puzzle I found also to be a bit misleading in how it was to be worked out, although that could have been just me, and I did appreciate how the adventure didn't hand-hold you through the entire process, so I guess beggars can't be choosers. Overall this did make for a good time, and even as I write this, I still have the Indiana Jones theme running through my head. Thank you John Williams!    

Ranking: I really enjoyed this one. It's an improvement from the previous book in just about every area. The theme is wonderful, the illustrations are beautiful, and the challenge level ramped up nicely throughout, allowing the player to figure some things out on their own, if even that meant the final puzzle took me a little longer than I would have liked. As much as I enjoyed it however, I can't quite say it's great, as it's missing a certain something that would elevate it into that category, and although I considered it, I just couldn't bring myself to give it 4 Skulls (although half a Skull isn't exactly a huge variation). This certain something may have been a lack of story development, which appears as though it might be an ongoing problem I will have with this series. There is also the fact that you are going to spend a LOT of time here just staring at either the illustrations or your jigsaw pieces until you spot what it is you were looking for, but this might prove to just be the nature of this series as well. It's already very tough to compare these books to the typical Skill/Stamina type gamebooks, but two entries in and I think it's off to a good start.   

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3. The Tasks of Tantalon - Score = 💀💀 - Two Skulls 

Attempts to Beat: - (I can't find the "infinity" symbol)

Three books in and this series sure has run the gamut. First we had the sci-fi entry, followed by the Earth set adventure, and now the fantasy quest. They have varied quite a bit in difficulty also, from the relatively easy book with a ridiculously tedious final hurdle, to the adventure that ramped up the challenge all the way throughout, and now on to this mostly bewildering entry. One thing all the books have had in common though is their great initial setups, with The Tasks of Tantalon being no different. This adventure is set in the kingdom of Gallantaria, which is located on the "Fighting Fantasy" world of Titan. This comes as little surprise seeing as how the author of this book is none other than Steve Jackson of "Fighting Fantasy" fame himself. I wonder how he got involved with this series? Did he happen to see what series authors Fickling and Hinton were up to and loved the idea so much he wanted to throw his hat into the visual puzzle-book ring? In any case, he gets off to a great start, with us learning in the introduction how Gallantaria has just emerged from a long period of war with its neighbours, and has finally obtained a much desired peace. This peace was mainly won thanks to the efforts of the court wizard Tantalon, who took over the rule of the kingdom after the untimely murder of the King. Unfortunately, the many years of war have left the kingdom in a sorry state, with various harmful events occurring across the land such as flooding rivers and thieving dragons. Tantalon finds himself too weary to clean up all the messes himself, so he draws up a list of 12 "tasks" that need to be solved across the kingdom, and decides to farm the job out to any prospective adventurer willing to take them all on, namely us. We are told that the solution to each task will give us a number, and if we can complete all 12 tasks, the sum of all these numbers will lead us to our reward (should we get them all correct of course). Each of the 12 tasks are taken on one-by-one in order, and each comes with its own full page illustration that must be examined in order to solve it. The tasks and my experiences with them are outlined below. I won't be giving away any of the exact answers, because frankly I'm not completely sure I have any to give away!

1. Release Sir Dunstable - This knight has been captured by river pirates and is currently being tortured at their hideout, and it is up to you to rescue him. You are given a picture of the torture chamber Sir Dunstable is being held in, showing him tied up and dangling over a fire pit. The rope holding him is rigged up through a series of gears and pulleys which lead to a lever at the side, and you need to determine which way to move the lever, either to the left or to the right, which will then indicate the number to take for this puzzle. I seem to remember a similar puzzle from Jackson's Khare-Cityport of Traps book from the "Sorcery" series, and unfortunately for me, I stink at these. I tried but I just have a really hard time with the gears in particular in visualizing in my head which way they will be turning. That said, this might be the easiest puzzle in the whole book. Not because of the puzzle itself mind you, but because you have a 50/50 chance of just guessing correctly, as there are only two options. That's better odds than Vegas! I will take my 50% chance, make my guess, and move on thank you very much. 

2. Catch the Demon Fish - A massive fish has been patrolling the waters off the coast near the town of Fickling (and was this a nod to fellow series author David Fickling?), attacking fishing boats and interfering with an important food supply. This is an interesting one, as you are given a picture depicting several different kinds of fish. This picture shows what each different kind of fish likes to eat, and your numbered answer here comes from determining what kind of bait you need to buy in order to catch the Demon Fish, with you being given the different costs of all the bait types. There was a nagging feeling that this felt like it might have been a bit too straightforward in how I went about solving it, and as I would go on to find with most puzzles in the book, there is a very good chance I missed something well hidden that is needed to figure out the correct answer. Anyway, I made my choice of bait and moved on. 

3. Arrest the Hag Witch - An evil witch has been plaguing the village of Weirtown, and you are tasked with bringing her to justice. When you arrive on the scene, the witch makes a run for it towards the town market, but not before using her magic to create several duplicates of herself. You are given an illustration of the town market, and must determine how many images of the witch appear. This is where that nagging feeling from the previous puzzle started to set off alarm bells. I did find one image of the witch I felt was cleverly hidden, but other than that this again seemed a bit too straightforward, and I'm positive I missed something obvious (or perhaps not so obvious) on this one. 

4. Stop the flow of the River Eede - This overflowing river is causing flooding of the local farmlands, and it is up to you to use a complex series of valves and pipes to stem the flow of the river. One of the better puzzles in the book I think, as the illustration here shows a maze of pipes connected to the different valves, and you need to determine which of the 3 numbered valves must be turned off to completely stop the flow of the water down all the various pipes. Good stuff here, and one that felt like it could at least be worked out by putting in the proper work. Or so I thought at least, as I'm still not totally sure if my answer is correct, but onwards in any case! 

5. Reclaim stolen gold from the Brimstone Dragon - This dragon has been stealing gold (as dragons are wont to do) and carrying it off to its hoard located inside a cave carved into a mountainside, thus depriving the kingdom of some badly needed wealth. Much like Bilbo Baggins, you are tasked with sneaking in and taking back this treasure. For this puzzle, I have no freaking clue. You are given a picture of the dragon sitting atop its treasure hoard, and asked how many gold pieces this hoard contains. The initial thought would be to count up all the gold pieces shown in the picture, but that seems far too obvious, not to mention that there are no doubt many gold pieces not visible in the illustration. I have a feeling there must be a hidden message contained somewhere in the book that I was unable to find which points to the correct answer, but that is just a guess. There is a strange narrative moment here too, when you are told you use an invisibility potion obtained from completing one of the previous puzzles to sneak into the dragon's cave. But the dragon is clearly shown as being awake in the illustration, so is he deaf? He surely would hear you rummaging around his treasure hoard, which certainly cannot be a quiet procedure. Not knowing what else to do, I went with the almost surely incorrect choice of counting up the visible gold pieces just so I could continue.    

6. Rescue the Princes - This group of four princes have been magically turned into frogs and are currently being held prisoner in an underground chamber, and you of course must save them. Another one of the better puzzles in the book, and perhaps one of only two I felt confident I got correct. You are given the layout in grid style of the narrow chamber in which the frogs are being held, along with the starting position of all four frog princes and also the four horned toads that are guarding against their escape. You must then figure out how to move both the frogs and the toads so that the frogs move past the toads and make it to the other side of the chamber, counting how many "hops" the frogs must take in order to do so. There is a nice mix of thought required along with satisfaction when you get the frogs all moved over, despite it not being particularly complicated. I enjoyed setting up my own little "board" with tokens representing both the frogs and the toads and then moving them around. Nothing too involved, but fun nevertheless.  

7. Retrieve regency jewel from the Minotaur - A valuable jewel is being held by a Minotaur, and we must navigate its maze to reach this jewel which is located at its centre. This reminded me very much of some of the maze puzzles from the "Be An Interplanetary Spy" series, although dialed up here obviously. You are provided a picture of the maze and must determine which numbered entrance will lead you through to its centre where the jewel is found. This took me some trial and error, but I felt like I eventually found a route through without putting me out too much, which means I probably overlooked something entirely! I did find it odd and a bit of a shame that the Minotaur itself never actually plays into the puzzle. You are just told that if you make it through you will defeat him and that's it. The only reason you might remember he is even there is due to the illustration with its "somebody just stepped on my tail" expression.  

8. Locate the Ting Ring - Another one where I have no freaking clue. This puzzle involves us reclaiming a powerful ring which was once held by a necromancer. Upon his death, all his possessions supposedly passed to his alchemist apprentice, but this alchemist claims no knowledge regarding the whereabouts of the ring. We are given an illustration of the alchemist's lab, and are told the ring is hidden somewhere in the picture. We need to find it, and then count how many stones the ring has, which will be our number for this task. Depressingly, and for me prophetically, we are also told that the ring can disguise itself to blend in with its surroundings, making it "nigh impossible to locate". Doesn't exactly inspire confidence does it? As it turned out, no confidence was warranted either, at least in my case, as I studied this picture for a long while and could just not find the blasted ring. Needing a number to move on, I just guessed a lower value (it probably has a low number of stones right?), and with blurry eyes moved on to the next task.  

9. Find King Tag - This traitor to the kingdom (it was he who was responsible for killing the previous King) is hiding out somewhere in a remote region. We are provided a map of this region, and must figure out where on this map Tag is hiding, adding up the values on the x and y axes provided on the map that correspond to the location where we think he can be found to give us our number. This one felt quite clever, as it involves you paying attention to things you learned earlier in the adventure, which becomes more common the deeper you get into the tasks. There are a few red herrings here, and I feel like I at least had a chance of getting this one correct, but I will probably never know for sure unless I consult a solution.   

10. Find Hornhelm's Treasure - This great warrior of the kingdom, now deceased, buried his greatest treasure before his death, leaving only a map and some notes as to where this treasure can be found. This is another generally clever one involving the studying of a map, and I enjoyed following the notes to figure out the treasure's location based upon the landmarks shown upon it. I feel like I followed the instructions well enough, and it didn't take me too long to arrive at a solution to where I felt the treasure was buried. In fact, this felt a bit too easy to me, which in the case of this book means I was probably way off base. Still, I used a number given by my final choice of landmark, and on I went.

11. Release Cassandra from the Prison Tower - Good grief. How many of these now where I have no freaking clue? Add this one to the list. So the Lady Cassandra has recently been captured by Gremlins, who now hold her prisoner inside a tower, and she must be freed. The illustration here shows the lock mechanism, and you must use that to figure out which of the many numbered keys scattered throughout the picture will work in the lock. Much like the gears from the first task, I have a really hard time envisioning in my head how these would fit into the lock, so was ultimately left with once again just guessing and picking a key at random before leaving. Couldn't she just have lowered her damn hair? 

12. Free Sir Duke from Medusa -  Medusa (wait, THAT Medusa? how did she get on Titan? ) has transformed the noble Sir Duke into stone, as he was apparently dumb enough to venture into her lair.  There are seven numbered statues of men turned to stone in this lair, and you must determine which of these is Sir Duke, recording the indicated number of your choice. You manage to acquire an item that can turn one, and only one, of these statues back into human form, so you need to choose wisely as you just get the one shot at it. This was a clever puzzle too which relies on information from prior tasks should you wish to have a hope in solving it. That is assuming you don't just make a lucky guess of course. I went back through previous sections of the book until I felt I had narrowed it down to the correct choice, and this was only the second task I felt confident I got right. I therefore made my choice, and with that final task behind me, moved on to the end game. 

So now you return to the castle, making it known that you have completed all the tasks (which is very likely a bold face lie on your part). And what happens next? Your guess is as good as mine, as this is where my attempt ended, and I had to admit defeat. You were told in the introduction that you needed to add up the numbers you obtained from the various tasks to arrive at one final number. But what do you do with this number? Well, that isn't completely explained. You will have no doubt noticed various numbered tiles scattered all throughout the margins of the illustrations as you play through the book, and sure enough as it seems incredibly unlikely that Jackson had these put here for decoration purposes, they have something to do with the correct final total, but as my own personal total did not match any of these tiles, and I could come up with no other explanation as to where to use this final number, that was it for me. And herein lies my biggest problem with the adventure, in that you have absolutely no clue as to how well (or poorly) you are doing. I could have gotten anywhere between 0 out of 12, or 11 out of 12 correct (HA HA HA! Yeah right!), but would have had no idea as to where I went wrong. The majority of the puzzles were hard enough as it is, so some kind of indication on whether you had gotten each specific one correct or not was badly needed, although I'm not sure how that would have been implemented. I only felt truly confident that I succeeded in two of my tasks (rescuing the Frog Princes, and rescuing Sir Duke from Medusa), but even those are by no means a guarantee. I may have gotten several more correct, although that is the most wildly optimistic outcome, and even if true would be down more to lucky guessing than anything else. 

As usual with the adventures in this series, a lot is riding on the quality of the illustrations, and boy does the illustrator of this book, Stephen Lavis, ever come through. There are some classic 80's style haunting fantasy illustrations on offer here, and many of them are a joy to pore over while searching for your clues. I didn't enjoy them quite as much as the ones from The Path of Peril, but they are still great in their own right. I also need to commend Steve Jackson himself for fixing a problem I had with the previous two books in the series, in that there is an ongoing narrative taking place here, with each of the pictures being accompanied by a page of text relating our travels and what we are going through in attempting to solve these momentous tasks. The downside to this is that most of the illustrations here thus only take up one page as opposed to the two page layouts from the previous entries, and I can't help but to express some greed in wondering why we can't have the best of both worlds, by perhaps giving us a one or two page narrative section followed by an accompanying two page illustration. I guess you can't have everything though can you?   

Ranking: A gorgeous book to look at. Playing it? Not so much. And despite some individual positive aspects, I have this as the lowest ranked adventure in the series to date. To have no indication as to how you are doing as you play along pretty much kills it. With the first two books, I felt like I was gradually progressing toward my ultimate goal with each step. Here though, I felt like I was doomed to failure very early on, perhaps even after the second or third task. As usual I can appreciate the work that went into yet another entry of the series, and you would certainly get a boatload of playtime out of this if you found yourself determined to solve it, sanity and eyesight be damned. I personally found it depressing to be resigned to defeat so soon after beginning, because there was only so long I could stare at each puzzle before having to accept that I just wasn't going to get it, and eventually The Tasks of Tantalon became "The Tasks of Can't-Go-On". A hearty handshake though to anyone who managed to solve this adventure without any kind of outside assistance. You deserve a medal! (And that isn't sarcasm).

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4. Helmquest - Score = 💀💀 1/2 - Two and a Half Skulls

Attempts to Beat: 1

Back to another entry from authors David Fickling and Perry Hinton, and not surprisingly, this one proved much more doable than The Tasks of Tantalon. The story here though, oof! So much for that run of great initial setups, as that comes to a screeching halt. This is another "real world" entry, except that it isn't. Oh it begins that way, as you play as a visitor to Cornwall in southwest England, where a mysterious and empty ship crashes onto the shore one day. You read about it in the newspaper, so head down to the coast to check it out. The authorities there have cordoned off the area, preventing you from getting too close, so you decide to investigate the surrounding beach instead. This pays off, as washed up on the beach you discover a mysterious wooden box, which you deduce could only have come from the strange ship. A local historian (who conveniently happens to be an expert on the lost city of Atlantis) witnesses you discovering this box, and together the two of you head back to his shack to investigate its contents.

Upon examining it, the historian believes that the box contains the secret to the location of Atlantis itself, but you better be sure you wish to take up the quest of finding it (as the gamebook sternly warns you), because much like beginning a game of Jumanji, once you open the box, there is no turning back. Ignoring that warning, we open the box to find it contains: a scroll, a log, a golden seal, and a bag of gold coins. The scroll tells the story of a priest, who was an Atlantean and follower of the "good" god Daimos. He tells of how Atlantis had enjoyed many years of peace and prosperity, thanks to the presence of a magical helm, which kept the "evil" gods at bay. However, a man by the name of Vorash, who was a follower of one of these evil gods, devised a plan to steal this helm, and upon achieving success, he decided to break the helm into 12 pieces and scatter them in the most dangerous places he could think of in order to prevent the helm from being reforged. The priest learned of this, and was able to stow aboard Vorash's ship as he went about hiding all the pieces on various islands, and made a log as to their whereabouts. As opener of the box, it's up to you to use the gold coins to fund your own expedition, using the priest's log on how to find all 12 pieces of the helm, with one piece being found in each of the 12 illustrations contained on the following pages of the book, each representing a different location. This is where the real world aspect of the book ends, as these various locations are basically just different generic fantasy settings. Once you have all the helm pieces, you will also have uncovered a secret message as to the "secret way" to Atlantis itself, where you can then sail off to have the helm reforged, thus reestablishing the peace in Atlantis. I have to say, the writing quality of this introduction was a step down from all the previous books in the series, including the ones by these authors, and I felt myself cringing while reading it. It's a bit "out there" too, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but then it gets even more fanciful once you start playing it.

As mentioned, you will need to get the helm piece from each of the illustrations, and these pieces are located in extremely dangerous areas. So dangerous in fact, that each one is actually guarded by one of the evil gods. I have no idea if the authors just made these gods up, or pulled their names from some actual mythologies, but they come with names such as Orgat, Nazulla, and Bash (subtle one there), and can range from the somewhat cool to the somewhat lame. Ultimately they run the range of what you might expect, with there being a god of lies, a god of destruction, a god of poisons ,etc. Anyway, you are told in the notes for each illustration exactly where the helm piece is, the puzzle aspect comes from having to get to it. On most of the illustrations, a white arrow indicates where you begin on the picture, and you must then chart a safe path through to the location of the helm piece. This might involve you moving across grid squares for instance, with some of these squares containing danger which would kill you instantly, or perhaps it might involve you having to steer your ship through dangerous waters with clues in the illustration hinting at the safe path. This safe path is important for not only obtaining the helm piece, but because there are symbols scattered all around the illustration, and once you have figured out the safe route between the opening arrow and the location of the helm piece, you then use only the symbols found along that safe route to decode a hidden message found within the notes. Much like the previous Fickling and Hinton books then, each of the 12 pictures thus gives you a part of a much longer message, and once you have put together the whole message string, you will then have the complete instructions on how to find Atlantis and reforge the helm.   

It could be because I just came off playing what I thought was the fiendishly difficult The Tasks of Tantalon, but as with the first book in this series, Starflight Zero, I did not have too much trouble with the majority of these puzzles. The only times I found myself struggling were in a couple of cases where the symbols I needed to jot down in order to decode the message were so small, that even though I knew which were the symbols in the picture that I wanted, I had a bear of a time making them out. Another one involved a puzzle where you had to count all the steps in a large arena so that you could perform some math in order to get the safe route from the top steps all the way down to the bottom, and this put my eyes to the test as well, counting all those very thin steps. The very first puzzle, which appears to be an introductory one, took me a bit to get going too, as while it only involves you moving across the deck of a ship (and who the heck constructs a deck like this?), it wasn't immediately clear to me that apparently your character can't jump or even drop down a few feet. So, its much like a video game where your character is over-encumbered, and therefore cannot jump. And speaking of video games, while playing through the puzzles here it was tough to believe that the authors didn't use video games for at least some inspiration, as several of the tasks involve you moving from point A to point B on a "board", while avoiding any traps or pitfalls much like popular platformers of the day. Kind of a gamebook "Super Mario Bros" as it were. (And I hope to get to that Nintendo gamebook series from the 90's at some point). I mean, look at one of the actual puzzles from this book below, where you start at the bottom of this temple and need to make your way to the top. All it's missing is some barrels rolling towards you.

"Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle." 

Several of these puzzles did not require much effort in charting the safe path through at all, with one requiring you to move across a grid and just not land on a square with snakes on it, and another that anyone with a working knowledge of how traffic signals operate should be able to complete in seconds. You will spend more time on these easier ones decoding the message from that illustrations' notes than you will on solving the puzzle, and that aspect of it is not exactly fun, as you know you have the correct answer and its just a matter of tediously picking out the message one word at a time. Not all of the puzzles are like the one from the picture above mind you, as there are a few more of the "find the hidden item" type ones sprinkled in, but unfortunately I did not find them nearly as fun as the similar style puzzles contained within the earlier The Path of Peril book. 

Once you have worked out the short message from each puzzle and joined them all together, you have the final instructions for finding Atlantis and reforging the helm. Thankfully, I did not find these final instructions to be nearly as onerous as the ones from Starflight Zero, although I still had to put some time into it. I also admittedly had to read them over a few times before understanding what they were actually asking me to do, but once I had it figured out, I was able to recreate the final picture that you are instructed to make using some scrap paper (not wishing to draw in my actual book as you are told to do, being anal as I am about doing such things). I was also thankful there were not nearly as many different colours involved this time. That said, and even though my art skills have never been what you would call great, I found the final payoff here to be quite underwhelming, and was left saying to myself while looking at this final picture, "is that it?" You could argue it's a similar final result to that from The Path of Peril, but again, I did not find it had the same great presentation as that book. Still, the illustrations by artist Nik Spender depicting the puzzles themselves are mostly very good here, and do a nice job of transporting you to these varied and dangerous locations. And this is even despite the fact that, in a few cases, the safe path you are required to take through these pictures can seem ridiculous and immersion breaking. 

Ranking: As far as these puzzle books go, this is "ok". The story wasn't the best, and the writing was a step down for sure, but the puzzles themselves were mostly decent, if even a few of them were completed far too quickly. The final "prize" for completing the quest was a letdown, although at least I was able to attain it this time. I think Starflight Zero was slightly better except for that final step, and the whole concept was still fresh at that point too, so I give it the edge in the rankings. I at least was able to complete this one however, which is why in turn it gets the edge over the didn't-even-come-close-to-beating-it The Tasks of Tantalon. That pesky law of diminishing returns is starting to kick in again though, as the series will need to start upping its game a bit if any of the remaining books are to score higher. Based on the title of the next entry, I am wondering if the number of puzzles involved might in fact be decreasing, which could work in its favour if some new and interesting aspects are introduced. Only one way to find out!   

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5. Ten Doors of Doom - Score = 💀💀💀  - Three Skulls 

Attempts to Beat: 1

Authors David Fickling and Perry Hinton switch up the theme yet again with their fourth entry in the series, with this one being a straightforward fantasy quest containing a plot that feels ripped right out of a "Fighting Fantasy" gamebook. We play here as a nameless wandering adventurer in an unnamed fantasy world, who while travelling through a snowy forest one day, finds himself (through a strange chain of events) arriving at a mysterious cave as night is falling. This cave happens to be inhabited by an old man, and upon learning of how we are out wandering and seeking to make our fortune, this man tells us about a nearby abandoned fortress which supposedly holds a very valuable treasure known as the Crown of Daros. This crown was left there when the previous king died, and no one has been able to claim it because while he was alive, this king used magical arts to call forth various monsters from another realm to guard his treasure. As often happens in these situations though, these monsters would prove to be uncontrollable, eventually driving everyone away before presumably killing the king himself. The old man you meet claims to have a secret book which explains not only how to make your way through each of the chambers of the fortress, but also how to defeat each of the monsters that dwell within. This old man agrees to let you have the book so that you can get the crown, he only asks for a small portion of the treasure when you presumably sell it. You take him up on his offer, gather up your belongings which now include the magic book, and head off towards the fortress which is only a short distance away. Before you even begin playing the adventure, it is revealed that the old man is trying to betray you, because you discover he has ripped out the last page of the book, with his plan being that you would defeat all the monsters in the fortress but then die at the final obstacle for not having the last page, at which point he would make his way through the now empty fortress, only having to pass the final hurdle himself in order to claim the crown completely for his own. I really think this betrayal angle should have been left to the end of the adventure, perhaps even allowing you to get some revenge on him, because as it is this is all but forgotten once you start, and you never encounter this old man again. That said, this adventure returns to the excellent setup that was missing from the previous book, and I found this to be a very well told and written introduction. 

As with the other entries in the series, each of the full page illustrations of the book represent one different place that you visit. In this adventure, there are 9 different chambers to make your way sequentially through before you reach the treasure room which contains the crown. You begin by crossing the moat at the front gate, and then continue through such rooms as the armoury, the throne room, the sorcerer's room, the dungeon, etc. The twist in this entry is that each of the chambers, and thus each illustration, contains one of nine possible different monsters that guard it. The magic book the old man gave you can be found at the front of the gamebook right after the introduction, and lists these nine monsters along with providing a small picture of each one and also tells you which items can be used to defeat it. The first thing you need to do upon entering a chamber, is determine which of the various monsters (which include such creatures as a lizard man, a djinn, and a phantom, among others) dwells in this location. Once you have scanned the illustration and found the correct monster hidden somewhere within it, you then need to find the 6 additional items hidden in the picture that will allow you to defeat it. Each of these required items also comes with a corresponding number, and once you have all 6 numbers, you use them to get a short coded message from the inscription on the door of that chamber. As you have probably already guessed, once you decode the messages in all 9 of the rooms, they join together to form one long message which gives you the instructions on how to obtain the crown in the final treasure room and win the adventure. 

The illustrations here by Andrew Skilleter are really great, but that is not unusual for this series. Making my way through the fortress was very immersive, with some beautiful renditions of a decrepit lair that we would expect to find in a fantasy quest, if even it's not quite as empty as I was originally led to believe. Being only one page illustrations, as opposed to a double spread like we had in the first couple of books in the series, makes it a bit easier to find the hidden items you are looking for because there is half as much real estate to cover, but I was generally ok with that. Determining which monster guarded which chamber did not prove to be much of a problem, and actually gets easier as you proceed, because each of the nine monsters inhabits one chamber only, so you can use process of elimination as you travel along, with fewer and fewer possibilities as you go, until you get to the final chamber and only have one monster left, so that you know what is guarding that room without even having to look for it. The 6 items you need to find were a bit more well hidden, with plenty of red-herring items thrown in to try and fool you, but I found it did not generally take me too long to find these either, with perhaps a few exceptions. I liked that I could take a couple of different approaches here, by either identifying each item exactly before even beginning to look for it, or by just scanning the picture until I found something unusual, then checking the list of items that I needed in order to see if what I found was one of them. There was the odd example though where one of the items could be found front and centre in the picture, lying in plain sight. I would immediately think this must be a trick, but then was surprised to find that upon checking the item list, this was indeed a required one. Maybe the authors or illustrator just wanted to give you a freebie to get you started? (Or maybe they forgot to draw it in until the illustration was almost complete?) 

I should say at this point that back in the introduction, the old man mentioned that you would only have 30 minutes in each chamber to find the items you are looking for before the monster would kill you. This appears to be the authors initially suggesting that you need to time yourself, and only have 30 minutes to complete each of the puzzles. But then what happens if you don't solve it in 30 minutes? Would you just close the book and start over? That doesn't seem like much fun, and you would just immediately return to where you last were anyway, having already solved everything up to that point. However, this time limit is only briefly mentioned, and is not brought up again once you start playing the quest, and I have to believe it would have been highlighted elsewhere if it was intended to be a hard and fast rule, so that I wonder if they just forgot to remove it from the book. Regardless, none of the puzzles took me anywhere close to 30 minutes to complete anyway, and I could have beaten the adventure in one evening had I not been determined to savour it a little more and draw it out over a few nights instead. 

Once you have solved all the puzzles and have your secret message, you now have the instructions on how to get the crown. With each successive book from these authors, these final instructions have gotten less onerous (I wonder if they caught a lot of flak over Starflight Zero?), and this one culminates in you having to identify certain pages of the book so that you can fold them back to join the last page, where the borders of all the designated pages form a picture of your treasure. Thankfully, you can gently "curve" the required pages over rather than irrevocably folding them, although I did feel like I needed to be something of an octopus in order to be able to hold all the correct pages in place at the same time. This final procedure, simplified as it was, I still found to be satisfying enough, getting to see my prize in its glory and all that. Although as stated before, I only wish there had been a final confrontation with that backstabbing old man.   

Ranking: This was a good bit of fun. Mechanically speaking, this is very similar to the previous books from Fickling and Hinton, with the main differences between all the books coming from the varying themes (and also in just how time consuming the final step is). This entry is the straight up fantasy quest, and admittedly a bog standard one at that. However, you can do that and still provide a fun experience if the story is well told, which this one certainly is. In my opinion this is also the easiest of the books so far, but I still enjoyed it, even with, and perhaps because of, the shorter total time I spent playing it. I give Ten Doors of Doom a slight edge over Starflight Zero, which leaves it second only to The Path of Peril in my rankings. It's a shame this was the last entry by these authors, because while the formula hasn't been changing all that much throughout, I still feel there was a lot of untapped potential on the table here for some new ideas to be injected into this picture-puzzle book format. Perhaps a magic system? A much larger adventure with many illustrations that linked up together in intricate ways? But who knows, maybe someday, someone will pick up this ball and run with it. Or maybe they already have for all I know and I just haven't discovered it yet!

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6. Casket of Souls - Score = 💀 1/2 - One and a Half Skulls

Attempts to Beat: ?

I know, I know, this book isn't technically part of the Fantasy Questbook series. It, alongside The Tasks of Tantalon, actually formed a short two-book series called "PuzzleQuest", but rather than start a whole new review page, which would then also include a book I have already reviewed here, this series is where I'm sticking it instead. The edition of Casket of Souls that I have certainly looks like it was intended to be a part of the Fantasy Questbook series though, with it being the exact same size and apparent paper quality of the other books in the range, so this does not seem like very much of a stretch. 

This book from noted "Fighting Fantasy" author Ian Livingstone (he just couldn't resist could he? He saw Steve Jackson get involved with these puzzle books and just couldn't help himself?) starts off with a corker of an intro. This is another fantasy themed quest, set on the continent of Amarillia, but unlike most such adventures which involve you having to stop an evil wizard or prevent a demon from enslaving the countryside, here that has already happened when the story begins, with an evil Bone Demon having already made his move and invaded the country with his hordes of orcs and zombies, causing the death of a great many people (I'm guessing in the thousands?), with some of them turned into yet more zombies which now fight for the forces of evil. There are still pockets of resistance here and there however, holding out for as long as they can, and the story opens with the grand wizard Sallazar asking for your assistance in trapping the Bone Demon in a special magical casket which was created by the 12 grand wizards of Amarillia (with Sallazar being the last remaining member). This is a rather grim but enjoyable opening, as even should you be successful, a large amount of the population will still presumably be dead, so for a change of pace all we are trying to do is make sure that humankind, along with the races of dwarves, elves, and centaurs, merely survives to carry on. I have given out a fair share of criticism to Ian Livingstone in the most recent books of his that I have played (and will do so again later!), but these complaints are almost solely focused on his design decisions and apparent lack of proper playtesting. As far as his writing goes, I have to give credit where it is due, as he has a knack for creating an immersive and "classic" feeling fantasy atmosphere, which is once again present here in spades. To add even more interest, when this book was originally released there was apparently a contest whereby the first person who solved it could send in the solution and win an actual golden casket. I'm going to assume I am no longer in the running for that!   

In order to trap the Bone Demon in the magical casket, you need to speak a magic spell which will draw him into it.  And in order to discover this spell, you need to locate the 12 royal treasures hidden throughout the 12 illustrations of the book. There are 12 two-page spreads, with the right hand page showing an illustration which depicts a scene occurring somewhere in Amarillia, ranging from a picture showing the now enslaved dwarves toiling in the mines under the whips of menacing orcs, to a picture showing the centaurs organizing a last stand of their forces against an oncoming zombie onslaught. The left hand page is broken up into two parts, with the top part giving a cryptic message about how to find the hidden item along with a description about what is going on in the picture, and the bottom part showing one of the 12 royal treasures along with a history of that particular treasure. It took me longer than I care to admit to realize that the treasure I was looking for in any particular illustration was not necessarily the one shown on the page facing it, as any of the 12 treasures could be found in any of the 12 illustrations. (I was wondering why I was having absolutely no luck in finding that darn crown in the first picture!)  

I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but these illustrations are once again gorgeous. That should probably come as no surprise though, as in this book they are provided by the wonderful Iain McCaig, who is responsible for some of my very favourite Fighting Fantasy art, having provided the cover art for both the iconic Forest of Doom and City of Thieves. The illustrations have an ethereal quality which plays well for the fantasy genre, and do a fantastic job of portraying the dire straits in which Amarillia currently finds itself. The illustration showing the tortured court wizard Remstar I found to be particularly effective, and the picture of the orc "party" going on in the Great Hall of the royal castle was another highlight. There is even some light nudity thrown in at one point in the depiction of the topless fairy Moon Sister as she hides out in the swamps, (and good on McCaig for avoiding the temptation to give her huge gazongas), although even this would probably have been enough to get it tossed from my elementary school library had it ever been in there, such were those days. The treasure items are well hidden in the pictures also, perhaps a bit too well hidden in some cases, but I don't envy the tasks of the artists in these books, as it must be extremely difficult to hide the items well enough to make them a challenge to find, but not hide them so well as to make them darn near impossible. Overall though, this is a wonderful book of fantasy themed art, and if I was going to rank just the artwork from the 6 books I have played, I would have them as: 1) Casket of Souls, 2) The Path of Peril, and 3) The Tasks of Tantalon.       

So after only believing that I had found 3, or possibly 4, of the hidden items in the book (and when the introduction mentions that you will need a mirror and scissors to find all the items, I knew I was going to be in trouble), and knowing that perhaps even the ones I thought I had found were wrong, I decided that I could only look at the pictures for so long before moving on, so I figured with nothing to lose I would just take my best wild guess as to which remaining treasure was in which remaining illustration and then see how it played out. So how do you know which spell word goes with each treasure? Well, you don't know for sure, as it's not explicitly stated. However, having played half a dozen of these books now, I feel like I could take at least an educated guess as to what each word might be based upon past experience with the series. I now had my 12 spell words in the order in which I was ready to speak them, and was prepared to see if I would be successful in trapping the Bone Demon.

And amazingly.....I did it! I actually did it! I beat this notoriously hard book! Or did I? For you see, this book takes what was my biggest problem with The Tasks of Tantalon, that being you have no idea how well you are actually doing, and somehow doubles down and makes it even worse! Even if I had total confidence that I had found all the items and had the proper solution, there is absolutely nothing that tells you whether you were correct or not! At least with The Tasks of Tantalon, had you somehow gotten all 12 of the puzzles correct, you would have some CHANCE of winning through to the end, and also known that you had done so. Here though, there is just the final page of the book which shows the grand wizard's hand holding the casket, telling you to speak the spell in order to trap the demon and win. Did you get it right? Unless I have completely missed something, you will never know! At least, not unless you are able to find some outside solution, either online or otherwise, which in no way should be required to beat a gamebook. I can at least sort of understand why the answer is not revealed anywhere in the first edition, with the contest for the golden casket and all that, but that does not excuse it for those who may be playing this book long after the contest is over, or who may not have been eligible to win the contest in the first place (as apparently it was only open to residents of Britain and Northern Ireland, so I would have been left out even if I had played it when it was first released). My edition of the book also has no mention of the contest, and it was only from seeing a cover of an earlier edition did I even know about it. Imagine if in the "Fighting Fantasy" book City of Thieves, when you are asked to choose one of the 3 different combinations of spell ingredients to use against Zanbar Bone, you then carefully made your selection, and no matter which you picked, you turned to the next section and are told...."Well, good luck! I hope you chose correctly! The End", and that was the final word on the matter. So you know what? If this book cannot even be bothered to tell me whether I won or not, then fine, in a pique of righteous indignation I will just say that I did. Take that Ian Livingstone! Now who has the last laugh? A-ha-ha-ha! 

For me, the most interesting thing about this entry is not the book itself, but rather revolves around the contest to win the golden casket. I was not able to find out who the winner was through a relatively brief internet search. Did anyone win this? I assume someone did. Who was it? Where were they from? Do they still have the casket? Has it ever popped up for sale on eBay? I feel like there is a story to be told here which would make a great documentary, perhaps somewhat unoriginally called "The Quest for the Golden Casket". Ok sure, there probably wouldn't be enough interest out there for a TV show, but a Youtube documentary following someone around as they try to track down the casket would definitely be something I would watch. Then again this just might be my imagination running wild, with visions of this prize "lost to time" like in the final scene of "Raiders of the Lost Ark". For all I know the owner would be found in minutes, and tell their tale about how they have been using it as a paperweight for the last 35 years. I do hope the winner and their story come out at some point, provided it is not out there somewhere already. 

Ranking: I mentioned before that this series is tough to compare to other gamebooks, and therefore also tough to give scores to in many cases. That is probably the most true in this instance, as I am not totally sure what Casket of Souls is. It's a gorgeous book of art no doubt, but the "gameplay" aspect consists of looking for items in pictures but never knowing if you really found them or not, and thus whether or not you were able to defeat the Bone Demon. I'm therefore not sure if it's still considered a game if there is no way to actually win (is this the gamebook version of Star Trek's "Kobayashi Maru"?), or at least know if you won or lost without consulting outside sources, which should not ever be required. I had to award it some points for the artwork and the story, both of which were great. But as a game to be played, which is kind of the point of these books in my opinion, this one is a total dud.