by Damdael

I got interested in gamebooks a couple of 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 a bit over forty 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 keep my ranking list up to date so that readers can find other books to try out.

I partook in The Curse of the Snake Queen Kickstarter campaign and got this gamebook as an addon. This is the fourth Numed System gamebook I've played through.

First Impressions:
- Originally this gamebook was a free bonus for the backers of The Catacombs of Candarlin Kickstarter campaign. It currently sells for 10€ which feels like a lot for a 52 page booklet gamebook. Yeah, at just 100 paragraphs it feels like a long side quest from a proper gamebook.
- I have a black&white version of the physical gamebook. Apparently there's a newer coloured version available too which has updated artwork. I admit the b&w version looks a bit rough and cheap but it's a sympathetic self-publication worth supporting if you are a gamebook enthusiast.
- The covers are pretty much equally thin with the pages which reinforces the booklet vibes though there's this coating that adds some sheen and a smooth feel for the covers. The paper of the pages is perfectly acceptable but far from the paper of some deluxe gamebooks I've played. There's no lumpiness of pages like there was with my copies of The Curse of the Snake Queen and A Lousy Night in Candarlin perhaps because the spine has been stapled instead of glued.

(I took the images with my phone camera while holding the pages with my other hand so that's why the curve of the pages shows)

Rules:
Fairly standard rules for a gamebook. You start from paragraph 1 and proceed to other paragraphs from there based on your choices and sometimes to a direction dictated by the whim of the fate dice (two d6). The author has developed an independent game system, called The Numed System, and that's used in this gamebook. It uses two d6's and most of the time you are looking to match or exceed a target number.

Your character has five attributes (Education, Intelligence, Perception, Dexterity and Strength) plus a bunch of skills like Stealth, Climbing or Negotiating. Some combinations of attributes and skills give you talents like Master Thief or Great Reflexes (Path of Masters advanced rules) that sometimes unlock choices you otherwise wouldn't be able to take. You have hit points and if they drop to zero you are dead and need to restart the gamebook. You can wear equipment like armour, weapons and amulets which give bonuses to attacks, defence or skills. You can gain permanent increases to your attributes and skills, mainly by completing the gamebook. There are several gamebooks in the setting.

When it's time to fight you can either use simple or advanced rules. Use simple rules if you prefer a quick game; the enemies are defeated with a single hit. I recommend using the Path of Masters advanced fighting rules, they are not that much more complex. First you check if anyone is surprised; that side automatically loses the initiative. Otherwise you roll for initiative (2d6 + dex) and if you meet or exceed the printed enemy initiative value you will go first every round until the end of combat. After that you determine the opponent's action for that round with 1d6 from a table of possible actions. If the opponent goes for a big attack it might have low defence so the enemy stats are not the same every round. On your turn you get one action like attacking or using an item. Melee attacks are 2d6+str+mods and ranged attacks 2d6+dex+mods. The enemies do not roll and that saves up a noticeable amount of time, a smart design decision. You defend against enemy attacks by rolling 2d6+dex+armour+shield. Rinse and repeat. Rolling 1+1 means you get a critical failure and might drop your weapon for example and rolling 6+6 means you make a critical success and have a chance to instantly defeat the opponent. Results of critical failures and successes are rolled from special tables.

The gamebook also uses 'fragments and signs'. Those are basically keycodes that allow the gamebook to remember what you've done. For example if you insult a merchant you might get fragment 'H' and half a book later the book might ask do you have that fragment and if you do some hired assassins will ambush you.

Artwork:
- The author has stated that he generally uses a mix of his own drawings, licensed illustrations and graphics, stock images, and AI-generated images in his gamebooks. Mainly for budget reasons I would guess; the gamebooks he puts out are one man self-publications with relatively small audiences.
- Perhaps because the gamebook was originally produced as a freebie it's somewhat light in artwork. There's just one full page piece of artwork, some small images that repeat where something is needed to fill spaces between paragraphs and then there are a couple of enemy portraits. I think I've seen all the images besides the enemy portraits in other gamebooks of the author so they aren't new just for this gamebook.
- Some of the small space filler images seem out of place. There are images of helmets and swords which just don't relate to the story and paragraphs in any way.
The gamebook is ok in artwork aspects but that's it.

Playing:
This section is reserved for my worthwhile thoughts while playing the gamebook. I've kept my observations mostly vague in order to avoid spoilers.

- The introduction is short at just one page but it does state that this adventure is a supplement to the main adventure of The Catacombs of Candarlin and the booklet doesn't even have the game system rules in it because they can be found in the main book.
- You have four choices for how you want to proceed from paragraph 1. Nice amount!
- Ahh, the introduction continues for a little while after you get to use your character and make choices? Have to admit it was a lot more interactive and interesting than reading through half a dozen or more pages of introduction and then going on a quest. Anyways, the gamebook starts without any quest objective but at the end of the introduction you have something to aim for.
- Huh? I fulfilled that objective a lot faster than I though I would. What now? Ah, another quest?
- I have strong side quest vibes. The book ends up in a state where you idle around the town doing nothing unless you agree to this 'fetch this and that' type of quest the book offers. The other Numed books I've played have allowed you to say no to quests if you didn't feel like it which I appreciated even if it did cause the books to end there.
- I placed bets in the camel/horse races but I didn't guess correctly in any category and I lost all my money.
- Finished this short quest with just one attempt.
Playtime: 1h 40min

Positives:
- The author has some really good design ideas. Instead of a multi-page introduction you'd need to read you have this compact one page introduction and then you get to make choices and act for the rest of the introduction and at the end of it you have a quest. Or at least that is how it felt to me, I don't know if the author did it on purpose. I also like how the enemies don't necessarily use the same attack every combat round.
- I appreciate how the gamebook allows you to freely explore the locations on the map in any order you want to after the introduction sequence. Plus the amount of choices in decision points is fairly good; there are often three or four different choices that you can make.
- Meaningful skill checks. Failing in a skill check might have you miss out on loot or prevent you from doing something you wanted to do and so on.
- The game system works fine. Personally I enjoy gamebooks with more complex systems (for example Domain of the Deathless King and Obvious Mimic which use D&D 5e rules) more but this system does make for a smooth and fast play. If you aren't interested in long multi-round fights then you should check out gamebooks using this system.
- The 'fragments and signs' code system works well.

Neutral:
- It would be a lot more interesting if the different taverns in the book would have different activities like encounters that lead to valuable rumours or betting options available. Now they feel a bit same-y.
- Speaking of betting in the horse/camel race festival that takes place during the adventure: it would have been a lot more interesting to be able to gather rumours or sneak around to check the competing animals to gather clues who's going to fail (and in which way) and who's going to win instead of having to decide between very generic 'Horse 1', 'Horse 2', etc and then rolling random results for the races. I was a bit disappointed.
- There isn't much item management (which you usually expect from a gamebook). There are a couple of pieces of somewhat basic loot available but that's that.

Negatives:
- The playtime I recorded probably was longer than it actually took to play though the book because of the minor issues I tried to make sense of and write down (listed below). Anyways, as I surmised in my first impressions the book/story feels like a side quest from a proper gamebook. Like the foreword states. It's short. It's nice as a freebie but perhaps it should have been included in the main book instead of a separate booklet; the asking price for a copy is pretty high considering what you get.
- You have five attributes plus ten skills and only like three of them are used/tested in this adventure. In my opinion a good gamebook provides moments for all kinds of characters to shine. This gamebook fails kind of badly in that aspect.
- It's very light on new artwork. Most of the images supporting the paragraphs are repeats from the author's other works plus they are a bit generic.

Minor Issues:
- Paragraph 23: 'Soon he is ll ahead of you' probably should be 'well ahead of you'.
- Paragraph 34: On the map the place is called 'The Crooked Scale' but the paragraph text calls it 'The Twisted Scale'. Inconsistent.
- Paragraph 66: The text says you leave location X but you can also end up in this paragraph while leaving location Y so there's a small inconsistency issue.
- Paragraph chain 62 -> 22 -> 35 -> 72 -> 8 -> 66 -> 23 has a slight problem in that it can be the second time the chained event happens if you've already gotten back what you lost once before.
- Paragraph 72: 'If you want to end the call, turn to...' sounds like a weird translation. Perhaps it should be 'to end the conversation'?
- Paragraph 72: 'Knowledge of Human Nature' skill? Isn't it a talent?
- Paragraph 91: 'Ask for the Obsidian Statue'? Perhaps the intent is 'Ask about the Obsidian Statue'?

Verdict:
The gamebook left me a bit indifferent. I did like how the story starts without a clear objective and then suddenly you realize you've been playing the introduction and now you a have quest. I also listed in positives that freely exploring the map locations is great, I appreciate when skill checks have meaningful consequences and that the game ruleset makes for fast playing (and a bit more interesting fights than in Fighting Fantasy gamebooks) while also having some depth. However the gamebook felt weak in many aspects that I consider important for a gamebook. The biggest negative for me was that the book/story is so short and as such should be priced accordingly but that doesn't seem to be the case according to my short googling. I also didn't like how only three or so attributes/skills are tested during the whole adventure; you'd expect an adventure to have chances to use all the skills in the ruleset. The artwork merits only a passing grade also but that's it.

This short adventure/gamebooklet gave me strong side quest vibes. Which isn't surprising since it originally was a freebie/stretch goal in a Kickstarter campaign for a much longer gamebook. If I consider this booklet to be a part of that larger book it can be said to be a good side quest but alone without the main book it's average at best. After the introduction sequence, which I thought clever, playing the book just didn't excite me. Perhaps due to the multitude of minor issues that disrupted my playing. A rating of 5 on the BGG scale from me. That puts it to the low end of my gamebook ranking list.

~ Damdael

by Rachel

This is going to be close... technically the video for Composer's Cat isn't due 'til the 31st, but I don't want to be doing everything last minute.

This is pretty much me right now.
Image Credit: TeeTurtle.

Game Over On borrowed time...

Happy Tuesday and happy playing!
-Rachel

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