Solo Adventure Games
Recently, yarrowkat showed me an article in the current edition of Black Gate, a fantasy literature magazine. The article was a solo adventure game: Each paragraph is numbered, and you are presented with a series of choices that direct you to the next paragraph to read. Solo adventures resemble the more familiar Choose Your Own Adventure books, but they have a much finer-grained decision tree, tactical combat, and record sheets.
This was my first exposure to this kind of game, but they have come and gone as popular media, peaking in popularity sometimes during the 1980s. Popular series of solo adventure books were Lone Wolf, Fighting Fantasy, and The Fantasy Trip.
The particular solo adventure in Black Gate was called "Orcs of the High Mountain" and published by Dark City Games, some kind of spiritual successor to The Fantasy Trip.
I really enjoy role playing games, but I haven't made time to play them in many years. I'm not able to reliably schedule around them; the last time I tried to play a group game I barely made it to every other session. (I'm sorry ravendisplayed.) All the same, role playing games are something I value. I was struck recently while watching a presentation called "What you really need to learn" over how many of the skills presented there can be practiced playing role playing games. Numbers & counting, calculating probabilities and chance, and experimenting with strategy. Though, David Pollard has said: "In making important life decisions, we do what we must, then we do what's easy, and then we do what's fun." Maybe I'm just trying to make role playing games sound like something I *must* do, as they already come in easy & fun packages.
Playing Orcs of the High Mountain was thrilling. It had everything I expected from such an adventure: My mage collapsing after using the last of his strength to cast a spell that was the only chance to save the party, taking cover from enemy archers as we worked our way across a room, mapping out the dungeon as I explored it, &c. I've since played the other free adventure Dark City Games provides, The Sorcerer's Manor. They have published several books for which this material is teaser. I'm hooked!
There are apparently a vast array of solo games in the world. Everyone seems to have a different name for them: gamebooks, solo adventure games, programed adventure games. There is some overlap with board games, so boardgamegeek.com has been a good place to start researching. RuneBound seems to be the favourite commercial solo board game (anyone played it?), though I'm more drawn to Piece Packing Pirates, Island Trader, Cardinal's Guards, or The Island of D. These are free if you can scrape together the right pieces.
Other noteworthy offerings are PocketCiv, if you like empire building; Raiders of the Ruins of Kanthe, if you want to play nethack without a computer, or Battle Platform Antilles, if you want simple rules and a refresher on probability.
I haven't tried it yet, but Venturer's in Argent seems like the kind of game I have been looking for. Something that I can spend several hours playing in lots of small chunks. I like the idea of carrying the game in a file folder, opening it up to play, but being able to bookmark my place if something else needs attention.
I'm finding the act of playing more immersive that computer games have been in awhile. (Probably since playing adventure games, which strongly resemble gamebooks and went out of favour at roughly the same time.) Not to mention I can play them in places where I don't have a computer, which is a lot of where I spend time these days.
I've been trying to figure out what kind of interest I could or should sustain in exploring this space. What kind of game will be fun to play a decade from now, and what kind of game is fun because it is novel? Certainly, the fun in a gamebook is the surprise in exploring a new, unknown environment. Once you've gone through the book once or a few times, it isn't fun any longer. A board game can have the same problem, in that the number of permutations may not be large enough to stay interesting. There is a fine line between completely random and flexible enough to permit several optimal strategies. I've certainly read that RuneBound doesn't hold interest after a few plays, and Fantasy Flight Games all but acknowledges it by publishing expansions for that product. A sure sign that staying entertained requires the continual expenditure of cash--increasing the total cost of the product and relying on the publisher to stay in business in perpetuity.
That kind of concern has led me to find the Mythic Game Master Emulator. This book sounds terribly awesome, in that you ask the book yes/no questions and it returns you generic answers that you integrate into a cohesive story. It is as if your subconscious mind has the whole story and is telling you only the bits you need to know next. There is a review and example of using the book at rpg.net.
Between that book and the published adventures from Dark City Games, I suspect I can keep myself entertained for quite some time. It really feels like playing old adventure games, which is what computer gaming was for me when I was seriously enthusiastic about it. I've found a way to explore my interest in role playing games without the serious time commitment group gaming takes.
If you wanted to put a toe in the water, I'd recommend playing Quest for the Auburn Pelt. You print out a single (double-sided) sheet and play. No dice, no cards. Just the sheet and your pencil.
This was my first exposure to this kind of game, but they have come and gone as popular media, peaking in popularity sometimes during the 1980s. Popular series of solo adventure books were Lone Wolf, Fighting Fantasy, and The Fantasy Trip.
The particular solo adventure in Black Gate was called "Orcs of the High Mountain" and published by Dark City Games, some kind of spiritual successor to The Fantasy Trip.
I really enjoy role playing games, but I haven't made time to play them in many years. I'm not able to reliably schedule around them; the last time I tried to play a group game I barely made it to every other session. (I'm sorry ravendisplayed.) All the same, role playing games are something I value. I was struck recently while watching a presentation called "What you really need to learn" over how many of the skills presented there can be practiced playing role playing games. Numbers & counting, calculating probabilities and chance, and experimenting with strategy. Though, David Pollard has said: "In making important life decisions, we do what we must, then we do what's easy, and then we do what's fun." Maybe I'm just trying to make role playing games sound like something I *must* do, as they already come in easy & fun packages.
Playing Orcs of the High Mountain was thrilling. It had everything I expected from such an adventure: My mage collapsing after using the last of his strength to cast a spell that was the only chance to save the party, taking cover from enemy archers as we worked our way across a room, mapping out the dungeon as I explored it, &c. I've since played the other free adventure Dark City Games provides, The Sorcerer's Manor. They have published several books for which this material is teaser. I'm hooked!
There are apparently a vast array of solo games in the world. Everyone seems to have a different name for them: gamebooks, solo adventure games, programed adventure games. There is some overlap with board games, so boardgamegeek.com has been a good place to start researching. RuneBound seems to be the favourite commercial solo board game (anyone played it?), though I'm more drawn to Piece Packing Pirates, Island Trader, Cardinal's Guards, or The Island of D. These are free if you can scrape together the right pieces.
Other noteworthy offerings are PocketCiv, if you like empire building; Raiders of the Ruins of Kanthe, if you want to play nethack without a computer, or Battle Platform Antilles, if you want simple rules and a refresher on probability.
I haven't tried it yet, but Venturer's in Argent seems like the kind of game I have been looking for. Something that I can spend several hours playing in lots of small chunks. I like the idea of carrying the game in a file folder, opening it up to play, but being able to bookmark my place if something else needs attention.
I'm finding the act of playing more immersive that computer games have been in awhile. (Probably since playing adventure games, which strongly resemble gamebooks and went out of favour at roughly the same time.) Not to mention I can play them in places where I don't have a computer, which is a lot of where I spend time these days.
I've been trying to figure out what kind of interest I could or should sustain in exploring this space. What kind of game will be fun to play a decade from now, and what kind of game is fun because it is novel? Certainly, the fun in a gamebook is the surprise in exploring a new, unknown environment. Once you've gone through the book once or a few times, it isn't fun any longer. A board game can have the same problem, in that the number of permutations may not be large enough to stay interesting. There is a fine line between completely random and flexible enough to permit several optimal strategies. I've certainly read that RuneBound doesn't hold interest after a few plays, and Fantasy Flight Games all but acknowledges it by publishing expansions for that product. A sure sign that staying entertained requires the continual expenditure of cash--increasing the total cost of the product and relying on the publisher to stay in business in perpetuity.
That kind of concern has led me to find the Mythic Game Master Emulator. This book sounds terribly awesome, in that you ask the book yes/no questions and it returns you generic answers that you integrate into a cohesive story. It is as if your subconscious mind has the whole story and is telling you only the bits you need to know next. There is a review and example of using the book at rpg.net.
Between that book and the published adventures from Dark City Games, I suspect I can keep myself entertained for quite some time. It really feels like playing old adventure games, which is what computer gaming was for me when I was seriously enthusiastic about it. I've found a way to explore my interest in role playing games without the serious time commitment group gaming takes.
If you wanted to put a toe in the water, I'd recommend playing Quest for the Auburn Pelt. You print out a single (double-sided) sheet and play. No dice, no cards. Just the sheet and your pencil.