| Title | : | The Citadel of Chaos (Fighting Fantasy #2) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0140316035 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780140316032 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 208 |
| Publication | : | First published March 31, 1983 |
The Citadel holds a dark and dangerous peril for anyone foolhardy enough to venture through its gruesome gates. And yet venture you must, for your mission lies at the heart of the Citadel, with the dread sorceror, Balthus Dire!
Two dice, a pencil and an eraser are all you need to make your journey. YOU decide which route to take, which monsters to fight, and where to use your special knowledge of the magic arts.
The Citadel of Chaos (Fighting Fantasy #2) Reviews
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Assassination, sorcerer style, is the name of the game in The Citadel of Chaos!
Steve Jackson has been pumping out these gamebooks for decades. I believe there's something like 60 of them. In them you play an adventurer on a quest that involves a dungeon crawl, a term gamers use to describe an adventure in which your character is going room-to-room through some kind of controlled area, like a dungeon, crypt, catacombs, caves, etc. For the purpose of books like this, which are very much modeled upon the Choose Your Own Adventure style of reading, it's necessary to keep "on track," if you will. More on this will be explained below.
But now for some book-representative illustrations!
Not all fantasy art is created equal, but Russ Nicholson's got the goods!
With the advent of ebook readers, you can now read/play these without having to keep track of ability scores, health level or inventory. You don't even have to make a map of your progress. That's a good thing, because I just don't have the time or desire to do all that. I just want a bit of fun and, after purchasing it for my kindle, that's what a book like this provides.
In The Citadel of Chaos you play a wizard and the coolest part about that of course is that you get to cast spells. That was an exciting first for me! The spell choices are limited and the ones on offer (Strength, Stamina, ESP, Levitation, Fire, and a few others) are designed to be useful at some point in the dungeon. Some more so than others, and if you take a certain path through the dungeon you may not find a use for some of these spells at all.
These books aren't "open world," meaning you can't investigate the whole place, at least not in a single adventure. You see, the story is linear and although this is a game you can manipulate, it too is fairly linear. Per each adventure, you pick a path. Usually you're given a couple choices. But you must keep moving forward, no backtracking. It's a drawback and failing of these kinds of books.
Occasionally the writer is able to include choices that allow readers to experience variant parts of the adventure that would normally only be found by following a different path than the one you're on. That's difficult and if not handled correctly could lead to an infinite loop, which would be embarrassing for the publisher. I think I've only come across one of those, so the editors/testers have done their due diligence.
Anyhow, the linear nature of these books is honestly a minor quibble and just one of the rules of the game you must abide by. No big whoop.
A fun aspect to these particular books is the creatures you meet. Sure, you encounter your standard goblins, leprechauns and witches as well as the slightly more rare golems and lizardmen, which are still fairly well known in the fantasy world, but you also get some often delightfully original - or at least oddball - creatures and characters. For instance, that Whirlwind was a breath of fresh air! *rimshot*
Overall, this was fun. I've enjoyed the two of these books by Jackson that I've read so far and I will no doubt read more. -
Just one of the shortest and toughest FF gamebooks... and an almost endless death count by the damned Gangees made me hate them for good!
Luckly magic system, nearly a prototype of the one later used by author in his blockbuster Sorcery Fighting Fantasy limited series, gorgeous moody artworks by artist Russ Nicholson, and final fight against Balthus Dire, with lots of chooses and ways to end the big bad final boss and his dreams of conquest, saved the day.
Three stars, three stars and an half if you add the nostalgia factor.. -
Balthus Dire! What a sinister character he is. The illustrations in these books are just amazing. Just like the books. I remember playing them as a teen. The warlock of firetop mountain, the forest of doom, the citadel of chaos, freeway fighter and starship traveller; not so good, the city of thieves; one of my favorites... I think I got to number twenty six before I discovered girls. The geek was coming of age. The fantasy genre took a back seat for many years. The angst of teenage years. Oh! The nostalgia. I am a fifty year old now and there is only one girl in my life but, the fighting fantasy bug is back.đŻđ
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This grade is total, absolute nostalgia induced.
And that's okay.
This was the first Fighting Fantasy book I read, and I fell in love with it, the concept, the goal and the execution (especially because there were so many ways with which to actually defeat the final boss).
Also, I got to be a magic user! -
A game of knifey-knifey and a bottle of two of wine;
A ghostly washerwoman hanging nothing on the line;
The Dog-Ape and the Ganjees and the Wheelies and the Miks;
If you want to get through this one, be prepared for dirty tricks. -
Free will is an illusion.
Everything we are in this world, everything we do and feel, can be reduced to a combination of outside factors pulling us around like puppets on strings - nature and nurture, what we're born as and how we're raised, and what seemingly random yet actually quite predictable events and circumstances the universe around us throws in our way, they all cascade and collide from one another, like little pebbles hitting larger rocks and kicking them further downhill, all conspiring to lead us all the way into the dark pit that is inescapable and inevitable Death, the termination of our biological functions and consciousness.
I do not talk about these things now because I want to. I talk about them because the universe has given me two reasons to do so, and furthermore molded me into the sort of a shape and form where these reasons were all I needed to ramble on about such things: the first is that a friend of mine broached the subject of free will yesterday, leading to me thinking about it in my own private mind; the second is that when I was about nine or ten years old, a casual glance at a board game shelf, catching my eye onto this book (I thought it was about Chess first), sent forth a great deal of little pebbles and rocks in the downhill of my mind, single-handedly shaping much of what I am - my interest in the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, in the genre of Choose Your Own Adventure in general, in fantasy and fantasy games, and ultimately roleplaying games, perhaps even my current profession as an author, or at the very least my interest in writing fantasy stuff specifically.
But even without ignoring the vast amounts of nostalgia for this book, the great deal I owe for it, it's still one of the best in the series in its own right.
Steve Jackson always wanted to try new things with the series, and in his first solo book he starts out by giving the player character a bunch of magic spells to play with. You're a sorcerer now, out to assassinate a fellow sorcerous warlord who intents to raise an army and conquer the world. You get a semi-random number of spells to choose at the beginning, and can then use them to solve your problems in new and inventive ways. It helps to make the book far less linear than The Warlock was: rather than needing to go down a specific path to find the exact same keys or whatever plot coupons there are, you have great many opportunities to go down for, many legitimately meaningful choices, all equally likely to end to victory. I don't think there's a single obstacle or puzzle in the book that doesn't have at least two ways to get through.
The final battle with Balthus Dire is also by far the best in the series. You can engage him in a duel of magic and fling all your spells at him, have them be countered and counter them again, or seek advantages in your surroundings as the duel allows you. There are great many possibilities in what might happen and how, many ways to win, even more ways to lose, and it's all just a lot of fun. Or you could just charge at him with your sword like you did with Zagor, if you prefer.
Russ Nicholson, the illustrator, does some of his best work here: his art is dark and moody, bringing the citadel and all its bizarre inhabitants to life in sometimes a frankly unsettling way. The wheelies are my favourite. It definitely helps to weave this gloomy, oppressive atmosphere, where you really feel like you're alone in a hostile territory where no one likes you and nothing can be trusted.
The rocks it sent rolling are still going, by now an avalanche in my mind. Had I missed it that time in my childhood, only discovered it now, I doubt I would have liked it as much. I could well be an actually responsible and utterly boring person. But all that said, my subjective personality or alternate selves notwithstanding, it's a well-written and well-designed gamebook that stands entirely on its own merit. -
Like its predecessor, CITADEL OF CHAOS follows the basic plan of a solitaire dungeon-crawl: break into the fortress-lair of an evil boss monster, defeat his lesser minions and traps, accumulate useful treasures, and kill the Big Bad Guy. CITADEL adds two twists to this narrative. First, players take the role of magic-users, who can cast up to eighteen spells per game from a list of twelve (rather generic) incantations, when and as specific gamebook entries prompt them. Second, rather than the conventional orcs, dragons, and other fantasy creatures of WARLOCK OF FIRETOP MOUNTAIN, the creatures in this adventure have an odd, almost Baum-like quality. There are amorous goblins, leprechaun tricksters, humanoids with rhino heads, sewer snakes, pill-shaped wheelers with four hands, and at least one demoness with lethal heat vision, not to mention the memorably-named Boss Monster himself, Balthus Dire. This is unsettling at first but does make the book refreshingly different from WARLORD, which, I think, is less likely than CITADEL to come off my shelf again.
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I always kinda saw this as a cheap imitation of the first book
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, but it is actually a bit different. You get to play around with spells and it has an absurd almost Labyrinth like aesthetic.
I felt like this one gave me a lot of second chances too which was appreciated. -
An apprentice wizard goes off to assassinate some powerful sorcerer
10 June 2012
This is the second of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and it seems to have been designed differently to the first one. The most noticeable difference is that I do not think that this book is designed to be mapped. The reason that I say this is that the book seems to be more of a collection of encounters inside a citadel rather than actually being able to explore the citadel. In fact, mapping this particular gamebook is nigh impossible, though the problem is that without having even a semblance of a map makes it difficult to find the one true path through the game.
The other difference is that magic has been added to the game. At the beginning you select a number of spells from the list, though you are only allowed to use the spell once per adventure (you can select the spell multiple times). The game is designed so that even if your initial rolls are bad, making the right spell selections should enable to you complete the adventure with minimal problems - it is just trying to find the true path is difficult at best. In a way, drafting a map makes it easier to try to find that true path, though I will say more about that style in the next book, The Forest of Doom.
The background is the so called battle between law and chaos, though one might suggest that there is a similar battle raging in the background of our world. In a way these concepts are very vague, but it could easily be compared to the battle between civilisation and barbarity, which is what makes these concepts bad. In the fantasy world the side of law is order, peace, and prosperity, which chaos is pretty much the opposite. It is the same in our world, with civilisation being the means for prosperity and peace, and can easily be summed up to mean the rule of law. The rule of law sits in the background and guides society and everybody, right up to the prime minister, is subject to it. However chaos can be seen as the fickle rule of a single person, where there is no rule, just decisions made by the ruler based on emotion and feeling at the time.
In this book, the antagonist, Balthus Dire, is out to conquer the lands of law, and as the war comes closer, you volunteer to sneak into his citadel and assassinate him. This mission is pretty much spelt out at the beginning. I guess this is where I want to rant a bit because to me it is difficult to suspend my disbelief. Okay, in the first book you are simply breaking into the house of some tin-pot wizard (and it is assumed that he is bad, though it is more likely it that he is a loner, and for some reason, people who live alone are up to no good, so they must be bad) and stealing his treasure. Okay, he did have a pet dragon, but the dragon can easily be dealt with (and just because you have a pet dragon does not mean that you are evil). However, this one is different because you are going up against a powerful ruler to assassinate him, and you are like an apprentice wizard. To me, this makes no sense because this is the job of a professional assassin, and honestly, what does an apprentice wizard know about wetwork? Not much I'd say.
The final battle with Balthus Dire was much better than the one at the end of Firetop Mountain, but that is not surprising because Firetop Mountain was the first, and the style was still being developed. However, this battle was a lot more descriptive and simply did not fall down to a collection of dice rolls. Instead there were multiple options determining the moves that you make to fight the wizard and his cronies. In a way much better and much more enjoyable, though it still is a much more difficult book. -
More nostalgia as I dug out this follow-up to THE WARLOCK OF FIRETOP MOUNTAIN to see how it's held up all these years. These are the books I absolutely loved as a kid (and ones which gave me a life-long love of fantasy).
CITADEL is short but effective. The plot is virtually the same as in WARLOCK, except this time you need to infiltrate a citadel instead of a mountain. Once again the aim is assassination, with the excellently-named 'Balthus Dire' your main target. There are a few differences, mainly that you're a mage here, with access to a handful of handy spells. It added interest to the game. Otherwise, it's fairly linear, following passageways, choosing to open doors, fighting rhino-men and goblin/giant hybrids. The enemies seemed a little easier than in other adventures.
We ended up trapped in a prison cell, not having the right spells with us, so we lost the game. It seemed a little unfair but that's the fun of these books: you never know what's going to happen next or what you might need...
Another attempt: we did better the next time around, successfully infiltrating the citadel itself and befriending a few useful allies on the way. This time around, the chosen spells seemed to be more effective and some relevant items were discovered, but a gradual loss of stamina and a spooky encounter with some disembodied heads in a pitch-black tower room led to a relatively early death.
Another attempt: and another early death! This time in standard combat after ending up with a skill of 7. I got partway in and once again enjoyed the gameplay, with lots of luck-testing and the use of magic spells adding immeasurably to the slightly basic feel of WARLOCK. This does seem to be one of the harder gamebooks though, mainly as even the early creatures are very tough. -
I used to love fighting fantasy books as a child, so when I visited my old childhood home and was perusing a cupboard with lots of my old things, I was very excited to find these books.
This was a quick, fun adventure book and it has so many different paths and choices so you can read it multiple times. I don't read it and play properly with dice, so maybe I'm a cheater. But either way I really enjoyed going back and doing this again. I will definitely be playing/reading the rest too. -
Having greatly enjoyed re-living my old Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks as I went through them for goodreads reviews, I decided to go ahead and fill in the gaps by picking up new copies of the ones I never played as a kid. This, being the earliest one, was the first I tackled.
It seems to me to have some weaknesses compared to later installments in the series, which is perhaps not surprising for a sophomore effort. The main thing I noticed is that it relies more heavily on good die rolls than most of the later books â if you start out with a low Skill rating in this one, the best you can hope for is an opportunity to learn something new before character death. You will learn how to avoid many of the combat situations as you go through repeatedly, but some will be necessary, and other aspects of the game hinge upon Luck rolls or other random factors. Another thing is that the dungeon doesnât map as neatly as it should, so itâs hard to make a useful guide to getting through to the end. Iâm pretty sure that there was actually no way to get both the item you need to clear the last major guard AND the one you need in the final battle, but itâs hard to be sure because my map was so messy. If I am right, that means that lucky die rolls would be necessary for any effort to clear both rooms.
Still, overall, it was still a lot of fun, and the artwork and creativity were as good as any of the other books. There are all kinds of creatures, from familiar types like orcs, goblins, hydras, and gargoyles, to two-headed lizardmen called Calacorms and shape-changing animals called Miks, and the dreaded Ganjees, whatever the heck they look like (you meet them in a very dark room). Each encounter offers the possibility of some reward that can help you later on, although there seems to be one room full of monsters who have nothing in particular to offer, which strikes me as an editorial error. An interesting aspect of this gamebook is that, in addition to your skill and luck, you also get a "Magic" stat that determines how many spells you start out with. You pick the spells, and as you go you learn to save them up for the final battle. I may not return to it as happily as the books I read earlier, but I probably will pick it up again one of these days. -
I finally had to tap out and let Balthus Dire do his thing. I hate these books because they are a challenge where you have to find that sweet spot of good choice combinations and die rolls to make it to the end, but I also like them for the same reasons. I gave this adventure several runs, but in the end I think frustration finally bested me (it took so long to make it past those damn Gangess and then there was getting past the Hydra and then that combination lock and I just decided that my character would return to his school and look into the availability of nuking the site from orbit- âitâs the only way to be sureâ).
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God I loved these as a child. Hell, I'd probably still love them now..
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I love these type of books.
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Another great one, circa 1985!
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Part story, part game, this Is a book with a difference, one in which YOU become the hero!
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One of my teenage years favourites!
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Full playthrough and review at
http://torallion.blogspot.com
This book is the second in the Fighting Fantasy series after The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Again we have a classic plot, albeit one which is more fleshed out than TWoFMâs. This time we have a believable backstory, a real villain, and a potential hero with a real motivation for taking said villain down (well, a motivation beyond âooh shiniesâ). The environment itself made more sense, with rooms appearing to have a purpose rather than just being an arrangement for an adventurer to pass through. The creatures that dwell in the Citadel are imaginative and varied, and while they do verge on the bizarre, even this makes sense given the premise of the location and its masterâs leanings towards Chaos. The robustness of the backstory and setting are perhaps reflected in the writing in this book â most of the rooms and creatures are described in great detail. That said, I found some of the directional descriptions a bit confusing â perhaps this was intentional, but for some sections of the book I had no real idea of where I was in the Citadel in relation to other areas.
I did find it a bit odd that such a powerful sorcerer had such a lame weakness â sunlight? Really? Unless he was a closet vampire, itâs amazing that someone so unlucky as to have such a severe allergy, survived long enough to become a powerful sorcerer. I can only assume he did all his invading at night. Also, section 400 is sadly lacking in triumphant prose, and together these two factors provide a little bit of an anti-climax to an otherwise fun duel.
Russ Nicholsonâs art seems better suited to The Citadel of Chaos than The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and in most cases he captures the atmosphere very well. There are still some illustrations where the lighting doesnât seem quite right, but all in all itâs pretty good stuff.
The Citadel layout, although very simple on the surface, has some subtleties which make progress not quite as straightforward as youâd think. Taking certain routes can mean you skip past a lot of important content, and the true path which I found actually involves taking one route, getting yourself captured, and then escaping to the first room on the other route. This is a little counter-intuitive, and I canât help but think it would have been better to allow players to backtrack rather than take such a circuitous route with no mistakes. Maybe some kind of time mechanic could have been built in to prevent the player from hanging around for too long. I might be wrong â there might be another route which works more neatly â but without reading my own adventure log I couldnât remember the exact route I ended up taking on my 4th attempt â thatâs how confusing it was!
On the other hand, I did enjoy the fact that in most cases, there is an alternative to simply fighting your way through (and in some cases, physical violence will get you killed). Most of the spells seem to have valid uses, some more than others (Creature Copy and Weakness are a godsend for low-SKILL characters) and this also means that this is one of those rare books where you can get through with very poor initial stats. It might even be possible without taking part in a single combat yourself, although youâd need two Creature Copy spells and some luck to get past the hydra.
There was one example of a clumsy mechanic where I was only allowed to pick up two of three small items â I understand the need to avoid handing everything to the player on a plate, but this could have easily been prevented by placing one of the items on an alternative path. Otherwise I felt the mechanics worked well, and were a vast improvement over the first book. The magic system is simple, generally giving you enough spells that youâll usually have options as an alternative to combat in most situations.
I found this gamebook quite hard in the sense that finding the correct route took quite a few attempts, and even then it didnât really seem intuitive. However there are several solutions to most problems, and even with minimum stats itâs possible to avoid directly fighting anything that outclasses you.
This is an enjoyable gamebook with lots of interesting situations rather than a focus simply on hack n slash. Trying to find the correct route was fun at first, but started to grate after a few attempts, as there were no real clues as to where I was going wrong. For a single playthrough, however, I would definitely recommend this book. -
This was the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook I ever got, over 25 years ago, and I was hooked.
It took me several attempts to complete it back then and it took me several attempts again this time. Those damned Ganjees kept stumping me back in the day, and I couldn't remember this time round how to deal with them until I finally found an object that would do the trick.
There are a lot of branching paths, but there are a couple of places you have to visit and a couple of items you have to obtain in order to succeed. But the several paths greatly increase the replay value too. It's sufficiently different each time to remain interesting, till your maps and notes from previous attempts are comprehensive enough to reveal the easiest path through to completion.
The actual final confrontation with Balthus Dire is very well done. I was afraid it would be a simple fight, but there's actually a magical duel which can veer off several different ways depending upon the spells chosen. It also helps to have paid attention when information gathering at earlier stages.
Huge fun and quite a leap forward from 'The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'. -
Retrofantasy from the 80's. This is a classic dungeon crawl in the old style with a simple story and not much plot. Kill the evil sorceror who lives at the end of the dungeon. Still it's mildly entertaining and reminds me of old style text adventures games like Zork.
Plus: Very good illustrations (besides the cover which look an 5 year old has drawn it, and it was changed in later editions).
Some funny deaths. Strangled by a curtain, really?
You can choose to join the evil side.
The combination that you need to enter the last rooms. Got me the first time.
The Ganjees!!
My copy has yellowed pages, just like an really old puffin should have.
Minus:
Well, not much of story - open door -> engage next enemy or friend or maze. And simple writing. But that's all part of being a gamebook of course. -
A little bit too similar to "Warlock of the Firetop Mountain", but with some exciting new rules. Very hard - new readers as well as old ones might be shocked to find that even cheating with the rules is a no guarantee for victory.
Review in Bulgarian here:
http://citadelata.com/the-citadel-of-... -
It's a Garrawilla thing!
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I played a few of these a couple of years ago, when the the series was relaunched with a new title by Charlie Higson, The Gates of Death. I've really struggled with boredom in the latest lockdown, and so I fancied something to get my brain into. I know these were aimed at kids, and I'm 46, but I never had the patience to persist with them when I was younger, and I've found that when played properly they're pretty absorbing and quite a lot of fun.
This took several attempts to complete, and kept me busy for most of the day, when the weather outside was miserable as hell, and everything is closed. Solving puzzles, battling monsters and losing myself in a rich fantasy landscape wasn't a bad way to spend a day, and as such this book represents pretty good value for money.
It is, of course, an old book, being one of the original titles from the early eighties. Sadly, although the Scholastic reprints have all the same text, the original artwork has gone, and as a result, the books are FAR less attractive. They also seem rather shoddily put together, given that the binding is starting to fail after one day. To be fair, though, quite a lot of spine-bending was involved. Anyway, those are minor criticisms.
I've not played many FF books, so I don't know how high this ranks in terms of difficulty, but to get through this successfully, you need to make sure you find some specific objects, and also a combination to a door (and once you've noted this, you need to turn to that passage number, so cheating isn't possible there). My early attempts lacked several key things I needed, but by keeping tabs on where I'd been, I managed to eventually get to all the locations I needed. One or two locations were very problematic until I had the right objects to get through. Finding them often involves guesswork and luck rather than skill, but as you progress, you'll get a feel for what you need, and I found I got through with surprisingly few fights, and although there's a magic system in this book with various spells to choose from, I found I didn't need to use very many.
As is the case with most books in this series, you can make enough choices to end up in sticky situations and have freedom to move around a fair bit, but there's a kind of linear structure that does eventually prod you towards your goal. There's a great range of creatures and locations, with enough variety to keep you engaged and busy to the end. The final battle with Balthus Dire threw up a few challenges, and his Skill and Stamina is formidable enough to present a few challenges, so make sure you keep those numbers up! This can be done by avoiding unnecessary conflict and using spells to maintain your scores.
Dedicated fans of the series might have stronger opinions on this than me, but as a relative n00b to fantasy role-playing, I enjoyed this a lot, and I'm looking forward to another three that I have to play. It's a fine way to while away time in these rather boring days. -
I am uncertain (yet) whether I prefer Jackson or Livingston's writing, but this FF book is pretty solid. I enjoyed the play through and it seems one could progress without fighting - just by making clever decisions. That's a nice touch. It also has a tighter scope FF1, a trend that I hope (and believe does) continue in the ensuing books.
Side note. I played with a paragon character (best, or close to best stats) and a sausage-fingered bookmark. I like seeing the branching realities or backtracking from a death that seems capricious. Your mileage may vary depending on how you play/read the book. -
There was a lot to recommend this book! The dynamics of the citadel were a lot more complex than Deathtrap Dungeon or The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. There were guards active in several areas, who could interfere with your activities and haul you off to jail. There were social interactions with different groups wandering around - people (mostly monsters) were selling things, hanging out, working at jobs, raising families. The various monsters interacted with each other and had opinions, instead of being hermetically sealed in rooms waiting for an adventurer to kick down the door. The boss fight was fantastic! It was clever and funny and compelling and very hard to beat! Really, that boss fight earned a whole star.
And yet, it didn't quite have that dungeon crawl flavor, you know? I know it's objectively better put together than Firetop and Deathtrap, but it's also slightly less fun. I'm tired of leprechauns. I didn't like the spell system, especially having to pick the spells ahead of time instead of using spell points, and especially replacing provisions entirely with stamina spells. I also died way more getting through this book - was it just me, or were there many more sudden death options? It was a tough job, with slim pickings for loot.
Still, a solid adventure, and a pleasant afternoon. -
This was the first Fighting Fantasy book to includes spells as a character feature. Choosing the right spells was part of the fun trial and error of the book.
Far more instant death/failure possibilities than The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. If you know the best path through the Citadel you can actually make it through the entire book with the worst stats possible.
The main story element sees you on an assassination mission rather than searching for treasure or performing another type of mission. Your job is to bring down the leader of one of two military sides in order to prevent a major battle and unnecessary bloodshed.
Great book. The structure of the book is typical for Steve Jackson with often many options to take for each encounter, rather than just a couple each time. -
Another Steve Jackson classic reprint. I don't know if others would enjoy this one as much as I did - for me it's now mostly nostalgia factor of the Woonsocket Public Library of the mid-to-late-1980s.
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Dug this out of my basement after a friend of mine mentioned using a similar sort of game idea/mechanic for his Nanowrimo project this year. Really interesting game/book hybrid - like a mix of Choose Your Own Adventure and D&D.
