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by Rachel Carpenter

Balancing on-the-go! Planning on catching up here on the Geek tomorrow and fingers-crossed... hopefully I'll have the next Mythic Monday report for you tomorrow too!

See you tomorrow!

Happy Sunday and happy playing!
-Rachel

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by Damdael

I got interested in gamebooks a few years ago. First I found joy in playing books from Season 4 Graphic Novel Adventures and then I fell in love with Legendary Kingdoms books. Since then I've played through some sixty gamebooks. I try to write reviews of the books I've played in order to lure others into this rabbit hole. In my reviews I try to have comparisons to other gamebooks and place the books I review onto my ranking list so that readers can find other books to try out.

I partook in the 2025 Kickstarter campaign that produced this gamebook and thus my copy is of the first edition.

First Impressions:
- The delivery was excellent. The delivery box had multiple layers of rigid cardboard plus it was one of those special types of boxes designed specifically for safely shipping books. The book was wrapped in shrinkwrap inside the box. It arrived in pristine condition.
- The book is noticeably thicker than the previous single adventure Obvious Mimic gamebooks. The page count of 190 confirms it. I'm expecting a good amount of adventure / playing time. The book has exactly 300 paragraphs which is a bit more than in the previous single adventure of The Mystery of Witchhaven. It seems like they've slowly gravitated towards longer paragraphs with more story over at Obvious Mimic and I have to say I like it.
- I love the cover of the book. The dark colours fit the film noir theme of the book really well. The cover has an interesting cavalcade of characters with different emotions conveyed by their expressions and body language. My interpretation could be wrong but there seems to be a sexy femme fatale, a hideous but stylish goblin crime lord (assumed until proven in courts), someone who seems to be an alcoholic middle-aged detective, a good girl drifted to the wrong side of law, a demonic brute of a thug and an animated skull with strong vibes of Planescape: Torment. The back cover has an image of the rain soaked port city.
- The paper of the covers and pages feels great. The covers have a some kind of coating that makes them smooth and adds a gloss. The pages similarly feel like high quality paper and smooth to touch. The book is fully printed in colour. The font is fairly large and easy to read. Despite the great feel of the covers I have a slight worry that the covers will start to warp upwards because they feel to be made out of thinner paper than the previous Obvious Mimic gamebooks (though I do admit that my method of assessment is not very scientific and I hope playing through the book proves me wrong).

Rules:
- You need to know D&D 5e rules. Owning the Player's Handbook is recommended though you can play perfectly well with just free resources like https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024. You will get to do things you'd get to do in a 'real' DM led D&D adventure. You will attempt skill checks, meet NPCs, cast spells, manage your equipment, do short and long rests, fight battles and so on.
- I would say that the only big difference compared to 'normal' D&D is that movement/positioning is taken out of the equation in combat. Besides that you'll have to decide yourself (instead of a DM) how some open-ended spells like distracting illusions on opponents or abilities like Eladrin's Fey Step work and what bonus they confer.
- You play the book with a single Player Character (PC). Any more will make playing through the book too easy and that probably isn't much fun.
- The book is intended for Tier 2 (levels 5 to 10) characters. It will be a good challenge for a level 5 character but it will probably feel too easy with a level 10 character.

Artwork:
- The art aspects are in my opinion top-notch, perhaps the best of the gamebook industry.
- A quote from the Kickstarter campaign page: We have committed to not using AI-generated art in our books. With the ongoing rise of AI art, we feel it's important to support real human beings to create original works to bring our worlds to life. And we have been fortunate to work with some truly incredible talents from around the world on The Streets of Port Noir and all of our other solo adventures.
- All of the art is very detailed and relatively realistic looking. All of it is coloured. The art nails superbly the film noir turned into fantasy noir atmosphere which is the theme of the book. There are something like 80 unique pieces of art related to the story (some of the smaller images, like coils of rope and other adventuring gear, are re-used from previous Obvious Mimic books). Besides that there are some 40 unique images of magical items. I don't know of any other gamebook that has even close to this amount of quality art on its pages. If visually great looking gamebooks is what you are after this book will deliver and then some.
- They've produced two tracks of ambient music to listen to while you play (downloadable from the OM website). The first track has a smoky saxophone playing and raindrops falling in the background - it's nearly perfect background music for this kind of film n.. sorry, fantasy noir adventure. Too bad there's just a single three minute track of it even though it loops nicely. The another track is a two minute track titled 'Being Followed' that's for... well... when you are being followed or you are trying to follow someone. It made me giggle with all the traditional elements of suspenseful music from sneaking scenes in movies - brush tipper drum stick beats mimicking sneaking, sharp triangle hits and soft trombone tones.
- There's also a self-DM pack available for free (also downloadable from the OM website). It includes battlemaps for the fights and enemy tokens. The maps are colourful and if I was DM'ing a campaign I'd gladly use them for other purposes too. However they are not needed to play this gamebook since movement is assumed in fights to simplify them. I loved playing with minis on printed battlemaps in The Dark Moon Rises but that was with a full party of melee and ranged PCs with a lot of movement/positioning going on and I agree with OM's assessment that battlemaps aren't worth the hassle in 1v1 combats like most in this book are.

I can hear the sweet words in my mind...

Thoughts while Playing:
This section is reserved for my notable thoughts while playing the gamebook. I've kept my observations purposefully somewhat vague in order to avoid any big spoilers but I've spoiler tagged my notes just in case.

I continued into this adventure with my loinclothed barbarian greataxe detective who has already chopped through The Wolves of Langston, The Crystals of Z'leth, The Secret of Oki Island and The Mystery of Witchhaven. I leveled him to 4 at the end of the last book. In my opinion the books have been a bit too easy thus far so playing them slightly underleveled has been a good way to add some challenge. His stats of 20str, 11dex, 19con, 9int, 10wis, 8cha are excellent for a detective (ha-ha).

[o]- Ahh, Port Noir. First skill check of the book: natural 1. A great omen.
- I got into a fight sooner than I expected to. And the enemy looks very tough for my level 4 detective - great! I was looking for challenge. Luckily it missed with its first two attacks. My first attack roll was a nat 1. My second attack roll was a nat 1. This is getting ridiculous.
- I met a few interesting if shady characters and I accepted an offer I couldn't refuse. A warm welcome to Port Noir and all that.
- A drinking game? With a toxic twist? Can't refuse.
- A shop for all manner of magical gear. It took a long time to browse through them and what would be the best investments. I bought Amulet of Rejuvenation and Final Stand Axe.
- I attended a captivating performance. A real banger of a finale too.
- I survived a fiery fight only because I had Relentless Endurance and gulped a few healing potions. I guess the fight would have been a lot easier if I was level 5 with two attacks.
- A warning to run if trouble finds me... sounds serious. - I have to say I feel that the atmosphere of this story is just fabulous.
- I almost needed a magnifying glass but reading the newspaper on page 87 was interesting. The different columns offered nice bits of insight into the current affairs of the city.
- I have a slight feeling someone has a bone to pick with insurance agencies after enduring a visit to such a place in the story... The dark humour amused me greatly.
- I found the fight with special rules to collect a bunch of objects a very refreshing thing. Too bad I died without getting a turn. I rolled nat 1 for initiative, the monster got to go first and rolled a crit for its first attack dealing 28 damage and then 18 damage for its next attack.
- I'm not too upset about my death. I did play as one level below the recommended minimum for challenge and now I get to roll new and hopefully better stats. I ended up with 20str, 15dex, 18con, 11int, 12wis, 8cha and 12 more health.
- In the rematch I again got nat 1 for initiative. Uhh... I was down to 21 health when it came for my first turn... And I died on third monster turn. Oh. I thought I'd survive this time around. Time for another new character I guess.
- Third time's a charm. I completed the objective of the fight with 24 health left (the monster had 177 health remaining) and made my escape. Not needing to kill everything was a nice change to the usual routine.
- After a bit of planning it was the time to put all the preparation into use. I was surprised that the book offered as many as four different options for how I would like to proceed. I decided to stay on ground level and to use my fabulous detective skills to reach the target via a side door.
- Another fight with special rules, how fun! On the first round an extra portal opened. I was reduced to 0hp during round four and bounced back to 1hp from Relentless Endurance. I tried to heal a bit but to no avail - I died during round five.
- I guess I need to give up pitting a level 4 barbarian against this book - you just need too much dice luck in fights to consistently get through them with a character that is one level below the intended. I did it with the previous books because I felt they were too easy otherwise but I guess this book has been tuned to be more difficult and you really need the power-up that level 5 brings.
- The rematch too started with an extra portal on the first round and I was again gradually reduced to 0hp but bounced back to 1hp from Relentless Endurance. Again my low healing capabilities weren't enough and I got torn to bits. I guess I'll reset the fight again and see if third time's a charm (again, haha).
- For my third attempt of the fight I managed to get a higher initiative than the enemies for the first time. That allowed me to whittle down their number significantly and instead of getting an extra portal one of the existing ones closed. The enemies didn't even get a second turn before I mowed them all down. Sweet revenge!
- A bit later there was an another fight against an enemy with an impressively long stat block. Its abilities seemed interesting and supported each other. For some reason I again rolled nat 1 for my initiative but even with that I managed to win the fight with some 1/3 of my health left.
- After some unexpected twists in the plot I had to go for a swim. There were two other options too but swimming sounded like the best idea for my muscular detective.
- The end boss honestly was quite easy. I expected more after all the tough fights in the book.
- Oh? Where I thought the story would end was instead a setup for a sequel? I'm positively excited to continue - I loved the characters, the crooked city and the atmosphere.[/o]

Playing time: 10h 31min

Positives:
- The art aspects are likely the best of the gamebook industry. There's a great amount of coloured and detailed art made for this fantasy noir setting. The ambient music tracks and self-DM pack are excellent too.
- I feel that they've finally gotten the length of a gamebook where it needs to be at minimum with this book. 163 pages of adventure plus 23 pages of supporting content. 300 paragraphs isn't the highest paragraph count of all the Obvious Mimic gamebooks thus far but the paragraphs are longer, the events require more careful consideration and the fights are more complex / challenging (and thus interesting). My playing time of ten and a half hours is a good two-three hours more than with the previous OM single adventure books (though some of that extra time comes from replaying sections in which I died).
- The gamebook is challenging for a level 5 character which is the intended minimum level. I wrote above that I've played the previous books with an underleveled character because they were a bit too easy otherwise but in this book I got pummeled with a level 4 character and died several times.
- The fantasy noir atmosphere is positively palpable and pretty outstandingly written with long paragraphs that described unexpected events, shady characters and the corrupt workings of the city. To me it felt like the best OM story yet. The most interesting and believable NPCs yet too (if a talking skull can be considered believable).
- The story is structured a lot like the previous OM stories - it's rather rigid and doesn't allow for much free exploration for the player. If you are looking for a gamebook in which you can freely explore locations in any order you want to, affect the plot in a major way and/or battle different enemies based on your choices then this gamebook is not for you. That said the player can make bigger decisions in this gamebook than in the previous OM books and I was happy enough with that together with the intense plot. This gamebook has some mutually exlusive path splits with different rewards and even a couple of ways to really skip forward. Plus the path splits are much longer than in the previous OM gamebooks. In the previous books when you were allowed to choose from three or so different paths to take they'd all converge back just a couple of paragraphs later. In this book the splits are ten paragraphs or even more (there are those tiny path splits too but not solely like in the previous books). I hope they keep going on in this direction in future books.
- If for some reason your PC doesn't want to associate with the dubious characters of this fair and quite criminal city the book/story allows you to decline the quest and walk out of the city towards greener pastures. I appreciate the possibility but basically it would mean buying the book and then refusing to play it.
- If you run out of health in combat you are dead meat. No gust of wind will save you like in The Secret of Oki Island.
- This adventure doesn't dish out that much inspiration. The previous books handed out inspiration like candy and it contributed to making the books too easy for my taste. You had advantage for almost all important rolls which created a snowballing effect.
- I didn't encounter any choices that led to instant death without any chance of save. I'm not really a fan of those so I'm glad I didn't encounter any.
- The physical qualities and size (about A4) of the gamebook again are great. My worry in my first impressions about possible warping of the front cover luckily didn't prove true (that said the covers do not stay as flat as the covers of The Mystery of Witchhaven for example so there's something different in the physical aspects of this newest book - perhaps it's due to the higher page count or have they really made the covers thinner?).
- The hundred or so magic items on offer in this book are mostly rather interesting. Not your run-of-the-mill +1's but items with conditional triggers or once per long rest uses for a powerful effect. Plus the book doesn't dish them out as freely as in the previous books that made magic items feel like dime a dozen. The items are also distributed in a smarter way than in the previous books - you won't get a druid's staff as a rogue or a sorcerer's arcane focus as a barbarian for a quest reward.
- The book presents you all kinds of situations so that all kinds of characters get their time to shine. However it's an investigation focused adventure in a crime filled city so abilities related to that are the most useful - investigation, perception, stealth and so on.
- The popular D&D ruleset means you can easily bring your character into another adventure instead of this being an one-off. Player character creation and such aspects have many more options than what can be found in one-off custom rulesets some gamebooks use.

Neutral:
- Playing through the gamebook for the first time is a great experience but there's little value in replaying it (at least from story perspective). You can affect in which order some minor events will happen (they will happen, just the order can be affected) or how you choose to get past some obstacles but all the major events in the story will happen in the same order and in the same way for every playthrough (okay, there's an exception but it's impossibly hard to pull off). The fights will be the same too.
- There are usually just two or three (rarely four) different choices you can make at any given situation in the gamebook. I didn't methodically check and compare but it felt like there were more of the three and four choice paragraphs than in the previous OM gamebooks. Nevertheless this is an aspect I hope they improve even more in future books. Personally I really appreciate gamebooks that offer four, five or even more different options how to react to / solve any given situation. The Curse of Cthulhu and Tallest Tower are great examples of that.

Negatives:
- After all the tough fights I had while playing the book the final boss fight was a bit of a let down. It was a lot easier than the other fights.

Minor Issues:
- Paragraph 94 directs you to page 176 for the general goods. The correct page is 164.
- The same as above for paragraph 178. It says general goods are on page 176.
- Paragraph 144 typo: 'obvsiouly'
- Paragraph 164 directs you to page 178 for Atma's. The correct page would be either 166 or 169.
- On page 124 there's a missing comma: 'Poison Poisoned'

I'm getting too old for these pub crawls.

Summary and Verdict:
Comparing this gamebook to other books I've played (Legendary Kingdoms or The Dark Moon Rises for example) I do feel that books where you play with four PCs and the story / order of locations isn't as rigid are better. That said I finally feel that we have an excellent Obvious Mimic gamebook. The art aspects are better than outstanding, the fantasy noir atmosphere is simply fabulous, they've included long-ish mutually exclusive path splits that the previous books lacked, it provides an excellent amount of playing time, the difficulty level is in a good spot for a level 5 character, dying during this adventure is a very real threat and it makes playing the book exciting, inspiration is provided less often than in previous books, I didn't run into any unfair deaths, the physical qualities of the printed book are excellent, the method for distributing magic items and their effects are done smartly, the book enables all kinds of characters to shine and the D&D ruleset is a great asset for linking this adventure to other adventures.

Compared to that wall of praise text the list of neutral and negative aspects is quite short: the replay value isn't very great, the book could offer more options for how to act in situations that come up and the final fight isn't as great and challenging as the other fights in the book.

The Streets of Port Noir gets a rating of 9 from me using the BGG/RPGG scale and goes to slot fifteen on my gamebook ranking list.

~ Damdael

PS. Out of curiosity: can you really build a city with stone-based towering structures in a location where it constantly rains? Doesn't mortar just run off in such conditions?