Narnia Solo Games

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1. Return to Deathwater - Score = 5.3   Tier = OK

Sections: 350
Attempts to Beat: 1

Time to head to Narnia! I have been aware of "The Chronicles of Narnia" books by author C.S. Lewis most of my life, but have not actually read any of them, so this will be my introduction to this particular world. Although for all I know these gamebooks are nothing like the actual Narnia books, but I'm prepared to give the authors here the benefit of the doubt for the time being I suppose. The author of book 1 in this series is Curtis Norris, who I know from.......well, from nothing really, as this will be the first gamebook of his that I have played. So this book will then be a first for me in a couple of respects. One interesting thing to note right off the top while reading the prologue, is that we play in this adventure as an actual child (I'm guessing 10 or 11 years old?), who while on a school field trip to a museum one day, breaks away from the class to investigate a hidden alcove that they had never noticed before, despite having been to the museum several times in the past. This alcove reveals a stuffed lion (the representation of Aslan the Lion, a major character in the Narnia books and the only one I am at least somewhat familiar with), and behind the lion, a portal that transports us to the magical land of Narnia. Gameplay-wise, the adventure does not get off to a good start, as you are not once but TWICE given the option to ignore the portal and return to your class, but should you try to do that either time, the stuffed lion calls out to you and you end up going through the portal anyway. Sigh. This kind of thing again. 

Anyway, once you step through the unavoidable portal, you find yourself transported to the castle at Cair Paravel in Narnia, where you meet with King Favian, a boy about the same age as yourself. The King greets you and says you have been brought to Narnia because he has a mission for you (and why he needs you specifically I do not know, as he seems to have many servants and troops at his command). It would seem that there is a cursed island known as Deathwater which lies out in the eastern ocean, and the King tasks you to travel to the island, investigate the source of the curse, and if possible, remove the curse itself. Oh, and if it's not too much trouble, there is a side-quest here whereby he also asks you to find out what happened to a certain Lost Lord who went missing after travelling there. The King will have one of his ships take you out to Deathwater, and will also have one of his closest friends accompany you, that being a two-foot tall talking mouse called Cheekimeek. So hang on a second, you have magicians and badass rangers under your command and you give me only a two-foot tall mouse as my backup? You know I'm only like 10 years old right? Thanks a bunch pal! With that, and after spending a night in the castle to rest up, you and Cheekimeek board the ship the next morning and set sail towards Deathwater.  

It's apparent right away that this adventure is from the same publisher, ICE, that gave us the "Sherlock Holmes Solo Mysteries" series, because the game system is very similar. There are no Life points or Stamina points here, and no combat system. You have six starting Skills: Fighting, Trickery, Action, Talking, Perception, and Inner Strength. You are then tested on these Skills during the quest by rolling 2D6 and needing to roll equal to or over a given number to pass the check and overcome the obstacle in question. The pre-generated character shown at the beginning of the book has a +1 for all these Skills, however you can allocate the points elsewhere if you wish. The problem here is that this series also throws in a rule whereby if you decide not to allocate any points to a particular Skill, then instead of just playing with a 0 for that Skill, you need to suffer a -2 penalty for it instead. Ouch. This really makes the pre-generated character your best option. If the adventure had proven to be more difficult, then some trial and error to determine for which Skills you could afford to take the penalty would have added some nice strategy, but as it turns out, this is hardly required. And as also with the Sherlock Holmes series, this adventure provides a "Key Sheet" at the front of the book, where at various times during the quest when you perform a certain action or make a certain decision, you are told to check off one of the numbered Keys on the sheet. Then later you may be asked if you have a certain numbered Key, and if you do, then events will take place that reflect what you did earlier in obtaining that Key. So, a codeword system in other words. Again though, whether I had a certain Key or not seemed wholly irrelevant as I made my way through the adventure, at least in terms of solving the mystery of Deathwater. 

Once you and Cheekimeek make it to the island, avoiding some pirates on the ocean along the way, you have the option of landing on either the north or south side of the island. And thank goodness for this, as it provides some welcome replayability to what otherwise felt like a very easy adventure. You travel overland, dealing with wild dogs or more pirates depending on which way you go, before entering a cave which leads underneath a mountain that lies at the centre of the island. You will have learned by now that the secret to the curse of the island lies within this mountain, and then you will possibly encounter some dwarves before navigating mostly empty corridors, which all seem to lead to the same place no matter which way you go. You eventually arrive at a magnificent underground tower located near the centre of the mountain, and once inside this tower, you will unravel the mystery of the curse, and will need to solve a riddle in order to lift it. The riddle itself was actually not bad, and while anyone who has played a certain number of gamebooks will probably spot the answer quickly enough, I could also see it perhaps stumping quite a few players. Answering it kind of betrays itself though, as you do not need to turn to a secret reference number or anything, you are just asked if you figured it out or not. I don't mind this approach in principle, as I would answer honestly if I could not solve it (and players who wish to cheat at the riddle would probably find a way to do so anyway, even if it did involve a coded reference number), however this doesn't prevent someone who may THINK they know the answer from turning to the appropriate section, only to find out that they really did not. (Would they just voluntarily stop reading at this point?) Even if you can't solve the riddle though, you are given a second chance in the form of a relatively easy Skill Check, and passing this gives you the required answer. Once this is done, you head back to your ship waiting at the shore which takes you back to Cair Paravel for the wrapping up of the adventure with King Favian in an exit-interview format.   

For the longest time while playing through this, I was coming under the impression that it was one of those rare gamebooks that might be impossible to fail. I routinely found myself rolling low on skill checks and failing them, only to find I was just sent along my way anyway, with perhaps only a mild loss of my character's pride being the difference between passing and failing the skill check. Whether I picked up a particular Key didn't seem to matter, nor did many of the choices I was asked to make, as you are shuttled along towards the goal seemingly no matter what you do. This changes a little bit at least during the final sequence of the adventure, where after making it back to Cair Paravel, you are questioned by King Favian on what you have uncovered. Basically he asks you if you: a) learned what was causing the curse on Deathwater, and b) were able to remove the curse. Both of these are learned right at the very end of your time on the island, and as long you took the seemingly obvious choices and solved the riddle, you should have learned everything you need to know. Should you not have uncovered the mystery of the curse AND also removed it, you will fail the adventure and are sent back to your own world to try again some other time. The sidequest involving you finding out what happened to the Lost Lord who disappeared on the island is asked about, and you can find this out during your time on the island, but it is not required to win the book. Going back to look at some unexplored options after beating the adventure however, I did find out that it is in fact possible to die on the island (in one instance at least), but it seems to me you would have to make some poor decisions for that to happen. You can also find yourself losing the adventure by rolling VERY low at one point, so while failure of the adventure is certainly possible, you really shouldn't need more than a try or two to beat this one.  

I have to say that the writing style here was also not really for me. The author does a passable job, but there is a whimsical nature to the whole thing that isn't really my cup of tea. (But I guess playing as a child who has a 2-foot tall talking mouse as a companion, what did I expect?).  It also felt somewhat lazy to me in places too, as I know almost as little about Narnia now as I did before I went in, with very little in the way of description or atmosphere imbued into the places I was visiting. The prologue explains how Aslan contributed to the formation of Narnia, but about all I can tell you about the world itself is that it contains talking animals and walking trees. There was one thing that happened to me while playing though that really stuck out as lazy. Upon failing a Skill Check against some pirates, I awoke to find myself knocked out and tied up, at which point I had to sheepishly ask Cheekimeek, being a mouse and all,  if he could chew through our ropes. Later on, I found myself failing another Skill Check against some dwarves, which led to the exact same text where I again asked Cheekimeek to chew through our ropes! Couldn't the author have come up with more than one way for us to escape?  The adventure also repeats yet another aspect of the Sherlock Holmes series, in that it begins with section number 100. I am still wondering why that is. Is it to make the adventure appear longer? ("Look! A quick glance at the back of the book shows it has 449 sections! Wow!")

Rankings: I thought this was on its way to the 5.0 score that I feel compelled to give gamebooks that, while not necessarily bad, barely constitute a game. The ending sequence thankfully does just enough to save it from that fate, and you can lose if you make some poor decisions (or are unlucky enough to roll double-ones on a particular skill check near the end of the game). Overall though there are just far too many choices here where it doesn't matter at all what you pick, and I found the writing to be rather spartan, and even lazy in places. But on the positive side there are a couple of different routes through the island along with the sub-quest involving the Lost Lord, so it does have a modicum of replayibility at least. I hope I learn more about the world of Narnia before the series is over though, as this book let me down in that regard. (And why was this book called Return to Deathwater when I had never been there before?)  At least there was a map of Narnia at the front of the book that gave me a little something to go on. Maybe I should just read the actual books! 

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2. The Sorceress and the Book of Spells - Score = 7.0   Tier = Good

Sections: 455
Attempts to Beat: 2

Book 2 in the series, from author Anne Schraff this time, begins in a not-dissimilar way from book 1, as we once again play as a child character that finds themselves pulled somewhat unwillingly into Narnia. This time, while summer vacationing with our family at the beach, we swim out into the ocean and dive down in an attempt to bring up something shiny that we spot beneath the waves. When we surface however, we are shocked to find that the beach we just left is no longer there, and instead we swim ashore towards the castle of Cair Paravel. Finding ourselves invited inside the castle, we come across Aslan the Lion himself, who has a mission for us. It would appear that an evil Sorceress has managed to acquire a spellbook from another dimension that gives her the power of persuasion, which she is using to make the inhabitants of Narnia distrustful and pit them off against one another. She is using this power to sow discord throughout Narnia, while she waits for her moment to then strike at the weakened kingdom. Aslan thus tasks us with heading out into the wilds of Narnia to retrieve the spellbook and return it to him, so that he can set right what the Sorceress has done. So off we set from the castle, with only some vague clues to guide us as to where the book might be hidden. (What, no travelling companion this time?) 

The first thing that really stands out here is that there is one very large addition to the gameplay system, and that comes in the form of a grid-style map of the area of Narnia that you will be exploring, with the different grid squares available being marked off from 1A to 6D, making for 24 spaces in total. This is very similar to the map-movement system seen in the "Middle-earth Quest" series, as the adventure starts you on a given grid square, and you are then free to explore in any direction you choose by moving to an adjacent grid square to the one you are currently on (and moving diagonally is also allowed here). When you move to a new square, you then look up that numbered square in the location list at the front of the book, which will give a brief description of the area of Narnia you are now exploring before telling you which section number of the book to turn to. Returning to squares you have already visited is handled quite well, as when you look up the square in the location list, you will be asked if you have a certain Key number checked off which you would have picked up had you explored this grid square already, and in that case you are either sent to a different section of the book where things play out a bit differently (ie. creatures you have met before will remember you etc), or you might be told there is nothing more to be done here and to move on to a new square. This makes for a very well-done free movement system, and I enjoyed the freedom of getting to decide for myself in what order to explore all the grid squares (and you are probably going to have to visit almost all of them to complete the quest, unless you get extraordinarily lucky). 

Map Board of Narnia ("out of focus" edition!)

A very nice job was also done with the goings-on within the grid squares themselves, and each one you enter plays out almost like a mini-adventure. You will generally enter an area, either forest, river, mountain, or plains based upon the topography of the map, where you then deal with a creature encounter of some sort, with some of the creatures eventually proving to be helpful allies, and others showing themselves as servants of the Sorceress. Once these encounters are dealt with, you are then told to "Move On", and you get to choose a new square to move into. There are a couple of items you will need to locate hidden across the map (a gemstone and an actual key) should you wish to obtain the spellbook, along with locating the grid square that holds the spellbook itself of course. Grid squares that don't contain any of these needed items sometimes at least provide some sort of clue as to where you need to go, but the clues really are not all that helpful (ie. "look in a dark place". Gee, thanks.), or needed for that matter, as you should be able to look everywhere on the map without too much bother. Still, the author made these mini-adventures interesting enough so that I wanted to explore every square to see what I would come across, even though there are 2 squares among the 24 that don't lead to anything, and just give you a brief description of the empty terrain before telling you to "move on" to another square. I wonder if the author ran out of time to put something in these?  

The gameplay attributes from the first book remain the same here, and once again you are probably best served by just using the pre-generated character and their +1 bonus in each attribute. The Key Sheet returns also, but felt much more ......"key" to the adventure this time, and I found myself jotting down numerous ones, which actually felt like they had a purpose this go round. The Skill checks are once again plentiful as well, with the numbers required to pass them kept low in many situations, and even should you roll low and fail them, you will likely still survive (with at least one exception as I found out the hard way). The encounters you have as you travel across Narnia include many of the fantasy tropes you might expect to find in such an adventure, including dwarves, unicorns, werewolves, giants and ogres, but were given enough individual colour to keep me interested throughout. The Sorceress herself was a bit of a disappointment though, with only a brief meeting in one of the squares, and you can even find yourself not even encountering her at all until the very final section of the adventure when Aslan defeats her. Once this happens, you magically find yourself swimming back in the ocean where you began the quest, ready to get back to your summer vacation, which no doubt consists of "penny whistles and moon pies".    

My biggest detraction from the adventure is the same as it was with the previous book, in that the challenge level here is just way too low. I really SHOULD have beaten this adventure in 1 attempt also, but well, remember that certain roll I mentioned in the previous book where anything other than rolling double 1's would see you pass? Well, there is another such roll in this book, and wouldn't you know it, I DID in fact roll snake-eyes during this skill check, which led to failure on my first attempt at the book! Ah well, in a gamebook this easy, such an outcome was almost welcomed, and I got to go back and do some things differently to see if it changed the outcome or difficulty of the adventure (and it didn't). The upside to all this I suppose is that because I had very little worry in failing the adventure at any point, it encouraged me to try and visit every single grid square on the map to see what they all had to offer, even if I already had everything I needed to complete the quest. 

The writing here from author Anne Schraff was a clear step up from the first book, and there was a much better sense of atmosphere conveyed throughout. Heck, I even felt I learned a little something about the "feel" of Narnia, presuming Schraff knows a bit about the actual novels themselves of course. One thing that did stand out though was in how your character talks. You are once again playing as a child, but I was getting a good chuckle at the various exclamations your character was making. These included such gems as: "Great Scott!", "By Jove!", "I say!", "By George!" "Bother!", By gum!", "I do declare!" ("I do declare"? When did this become "Gone With the Wind"?), and my personal favorite, "What a rotten pig!". Once again though, the various creatures and peoples of Narnia don't seem to think too much of sending a child alone and on their way on a dangerous mission, and I'm starting to think this is the whole point of the Narnia adventures, that when the land of Narnia is in danger, only a child is able to rescue it, and thus is brought to the kingdom by Aslan to do just that. Aslan himself seems to be a representation of Jesus too unless I am missing something, and that is even strongly suggested at one moment in this gamebook when he tells you that "you will know my name on Earth", along with him also frequently referring to your character as "child of Adam and Eve". I am now confident we will be playing as a child in all the books of the series.      

Ranking: Better than the first book in every way. The map-movement system here is a highlight, and makes this book feel like 20 mini-adventures in one, and which even allows the player to have a large say in the order that they do them. The writing was much stronger too, although perhaps a little heavy-handed with its moral messages of "be a good person" in the latter parts of the adventure. (There is a strong theme of forgiveness running throughout as well, and even the worst evil-doers in the quest are given second chances, as everyone is worth saving). The adventure itself is typical fantasy fare, what with its "find the one magical item that can stop the evil magic-user from taking over the world" quest, but was still done enjoyably enough. I wish the challenge had been higher, but it looks like this series may have been written for a younger audience, so I will probably have to deal with that for the remainder of these adventures. Might allow me to finish them fairly quickly though!