Hello, all.  I just joined and I'm looking around for gamebooks in this place.  When I first searched for them, I found this thread that isn't actually about gamebooks: I'm talking about beefed-up "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, like this other thread.  I'm sure there must be more.

I ask because I work with Megara Entertainment, people who have been fortunate enough to mess around with classic gamebook series, i.e., Lone Wolf, Fabled Lands, and Fighting Fantasy.  We're developing an RPG-version of The Way of the Tiger, and we're actively trying to publish our original gamebook, Arcana Agency: The Thief of Memories.

Now, that last link goes to our Kickstarter project.  I don't want to sound like I'm just advertizing when I'd like to talk with people who actually have opinions on gamebooks.  I'll probably post in the "News and Adverts" section anyway, but I want to do things correctly, and hopefully find people who have feedback on these sorts of works-in-progress.

Thanks for reading!

So its like Call of Cthulhu without Cthulhu? Twenty grand, ambitious! Best of luck with it!

Couple of pointers, maybe tone down the backgrounds a bit (ie the key on the NYC map) and don't have horizontal text over faded horizontal text, it makes it pretty hard to read what's written on top. If you must do the text on text thing, reverse, smudge and blur the text and have it slightly diagonal so it looks like its coming through from the other side of the page.

Hi Sir Knight and welcome to the RPG Site. If you want to advertise for the kickstarter for the RPG project based on the CYOA books, then the thread goes into News and Advertisement.

If you want to talk about the game more in a chit chat conversation, more exchange of ideas and Q&A than advertisement, then it goes into the Main RPG forum. It's all a question of tone, and of course, you can do both, e.g. have one thread for the kickstarter in Adverts, and a general Q&A thread in the Main forum.

Does that answer your question mate?

That looks pretty nice and I do love me some gamebooks.

Quote from: The Traveller;597495So its like Call of Cthulhu without Cthulhu? . . .

Couple of pointers, maybe tone down the backgrounds a bit (ie the key on the NYC map) and don't have horizontal text over faded horizontal text

That is now in the running for my favorite description.  In this case, the plot starts out with a mysterious walking corpse, and goes from there.  And as to the advice . . . thank you, good to know I'm not crazy!  I already mentioned that to the person wrangling art, and now I have another voice backing it up.

Quote from: Benoist;597497. . . If you want to talk about the game more in a chit chat conversation, more exchange of ideas and Q&A than advertisement, then it goes into the Main RPG forum.

Many thanks.  Can this thread just be moved into Main?  If not, I'll start a new thread.  (And I'll start an advertising thread later.)

Quote from: Skywalker;597498That looks pretty nice and I do love me some gamebooks.

And friendly remarks like this are always good to hear.  Thank you!

In related news: we're trying really hard just to find "the gamebook audience."  If you people know other online communities with a similar bent, please let me know so I can take a look.

I'll move this one into Main for general discussion. Wait.

PS edited thread title as well for clarity.

I am like hella drunk and can't figure out what's going on in this. Its like link stew or something. So how is Way of the Tiger involved here?

Gamebooks are coolm and Way of thE tiger was cool, like that battle with Yaemon Grandmaster of Flame was heaps good and has strategy and stuff.

Quote from: Benoist;597803I'll move this one into Main for general discussion. Wait.

PS edited thread title as well for clarity.

Thank you very much.

. . . Oh, I can't edit the title myself?  I would have gone for "The Way of the Tiger RPG and Arcana Agency gamebook."  We've worked on plenty of gamebooks (plural), and sure I'd be up for discussion, but I really want feedback on Arcana Agency before we finalize it.

(I have opened up an advertising thread for it.  Is this a subtle hint that I should move Arcana Agency discussion into the ad thread?  I can comply.)

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;597819So how is Way of the Tiger involved here?

I am tempted to say "We're writing the next book in it."  But that's not QUITE true.  I'll wait for you to wake up tomorrow.

By the way: yay, Discworld.

I do like a good gamebook.

I also like how video games killed gamebooks originally, but tablets and smartphones are now a great place to bring them back - Fighting Fantasy is doing well in the iGizmos, and I think a proper continuous series, like Lone Wolf of WoTT (As opposed to an episodic series like FF) could do well too.

Quote from: Sir Knight;597821I am tempted to say "We're writing the next book in it." But that's not QUITE true. I'll wait for you to wake up tomorrow.
 
By the way: yay, Discworld.

Er...yes sorry about that...
 
Good luck with both projects. I'm a bit curious as to what sort of system the Way of the Tiger RPG uses actually, although perhaps that's a bit off-topic for this thread.
 
(and yep, yay Discworld!).

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;598050Good luck with both projects. I'm a bit curious as to what sort of system the Way of the Tiger RPG uses actually, although perhaps that's a bit off-topic for this thread.
 

Actually no, it shouldn't be off topic for this thread. One of the conditions to keep it here in the Main forum is to talk about the RPG, as opposed to *just* the gamebooks, so questions about it, its system and so on should be more than welcome.

Quote from: Ladybird;597895I do like a good gamebook.

I also like how video games killed gamebooks originally, but tablets and smartphones are now a great place to bring them back - Fighting Fantasy is doing well in the iGizmos, and I think a proper continuous series, like Lone Wolf of WoTT (As opposed to an episodic series like FF) could do well too.

It's a little more complicated than that, actually.  We tried!  We took Fabled Lands (see original post) and created iOS versions of the first two books.  Results:

Gamebook fans wanted nothing but print books.  Videogame fans wanted nothing to do with iOS.  iOS fans?  They wanted short/casual play experiences that could be picked up and put down on a moment's notice.

So if Fighting Fantasy is getting people to do this thing called "reading," then it's surprising to us.  It could be game mechanics, appearance, name recognition . . . we don't know.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;598050Er...yes sorry about that...
 
Good luck with both projects. I'm a bit curious as to what sort of system the Way of the Tiger RPG uses actually, although perhaps that's a bit off-topic for this thread.
 
(and yep, yay Discworld!).

It's been interesting to figure out.  There are already 4 mechanics systems in print for this game world: The Way of the Tiger, Fighting Fantasy (Talisman of Death is in the same world), Falcon (Lost in Time), and Duelmaster (Arena of Death).  As noted above, there are lots of Fighting Fantasy fans; so should we use a Fighting Fantasy element somewhere in the system?  This is still a bit difficult to answer.

But for now, the Way of the Tiger gamebooks' basic mechanic is "roll two dice, add a modifier, beat a target."  That's our basic mechanic too.  Everything else is about getting it to feel right: letting the game world (and experience) define the game mechanics.

So . . . in the original, you played a ninja who could punch out an Elder God, and each new adventure brought new horrors from the depths of the GM's (authors') imagination.  The ninja cared about the mission, not the money (for book after book, you literally could not spend all your money).  Okay then:

Here, we minimize gold rewards and abstract a lot of shopping (I can explain more if you'd like).  The GM gets creatures that are fought more one-on-one than in huge mobs to slaughter.  We create powers for the classes (and monsters) directly from what they did in the gamebooks.  Hopefully, it feels more like the sequence of play you get in a gamebook than the hack-and-slash of a videogame.

. . . And that's where we stand, really.  We don't yet have any fully-playable system for testing, so we don't know where things are less-than-fun and/or broken.  Meanwhile, our artists are going bonkers, and you can check out our Facebook page for the pretty side of the game.

Hey, everyone.  This thread is in sort of a nebulous state, but I just re-did my announcement with actual gamebook content, so I thought it made sense to include here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1615043334/arcana-agency-the-thief-of-memories-a-full-color-g/posts/349315

This is, as implied, an actual gamebook.  It is a free "demo" (or prequel) that shows what we've done with the Arcana Agency: The Thief of Memories setup.  As such, it is an introduction to the "paranormal investigation" theme; and it shows off what I meant about "perspective," game mechanics, and so on.

Does it strike anyone's fancy?  Any questions, comments?  Was it actually fun to play?

We're also going to be on reddit tomorrow (see the Kickstarter front page), so those of you partake of said website can share your thoughts that way (and with this "demo," we'd have something to discuss).

Sorry, but game books are other games.

Okay, thanks for moving it.  I didn't want to create a flood of posts all over the place to talk about these overlapping topics.

Would anyone care to check out the linked sample and say a word or two?  If anyone is curious, the mentioned reddit thing will be happening tomorrow, not today.