Category: Gamebooks

Japan Pickups: Wizardry

January 12, 2024

My Wizardry game collection ever-increases, and with the acquisition of the above three on this recent trip there’s now only two games in the series I don’t own. While neither seem especially rare or expensive, the fact remains I’ve never seen a copy of either in years of looking so the search continues!

I was very happy to find the above on this recent trip: a beautiful boxed copy of Proving Grounds Of The Mad Overlord for the MSX2! Note that the original (1987) price was 9800 Yen – about $65 – which was about two or three times more expensive than a computer game cost in the west in those days.

The game is on a cartridge, and from what I read only works on expanded versions of Japanese MSX computers. I daresay there’s not many of them left working, so there’s no question I’ll ever be able to play this. The box contains all sorts of goodies, but notably the miniature metal dragon statue that was originally included is missing.

The above are three hints guides for various Wizardry games. I found these in Osaka which was good because at about $15 each they were considerably less expensive than they would have been in Tokyo.

As with others I’ve previously shown here, the guides are beautiful books, packed with art and maps and lots of colour. It’s clear the authors of these books loved the games!

This small hardcover book is an oddity! Titled Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Wizardry it seems to be a sort of lore book of items and equipment from the first six games. Almost every entry also features a nice piece of line art. It seems to have very limited (if any) use as an actual game guide, but could perhaps serve as a RPG manual of sorts. While I love it, it’s hard to see why this was even published!

Speaking of RPG manuals, the above was an exciting pickup for me: it’s the monster manual for the original Wizardry RPG from the 1980s. It’s a small-sized paperback with a lovely cover by Jun Suemi, and I dearly wish I could read it since the machine-translations suggest it’s very lore-heavy on the monsters from the games.

As you know I also collect gamebooks, so I was extremely happy to find the above two for sale. Both are from the Futabasha Famicom Gamebook Series and are based on the first and third Wizardry games.

These are very traditional one-player gamebooks in the Fighting Fantasy mold featuring manga-style art and what appears to be a complex system based on the size of the adventure sheet! There’s almost 80 (!) books in this gamebook series including two other Wizardry ones; I wonder if I’ll ever find them?

Lets end with a story about ‘one that got away’. The above pic was taken in Osaka a few weeks ago, and shows me holding one of my holy grails: one of the two Jun Suemi Wizardry artbooks. This is the older and more expensive of the two, and the sticker price on this used book was about $170.

Normally I would have thrown my money at the cashier but I had already bought the book on Amazon a month earlier. The amazon order – coming from Japan – was to arrive while we were away but never did. A followup with the seller led to a refund, and no book. So I held one of my grails in my hand and didn’t buy it, and still don’t own it. 🙂

Autographs: Authors

November 20, 2023

When I was a child I had an autograph book. I believe I may have had a single autograph in it, and it was a football player I had no interest in but got the autograph of when he made an appearance at a mall. I remember I used to glue photos of famous people in the book and keep the opposite page empty for the autographs I would (of course) never obtain. I was an optimistic stripling!

Autograph collecting dates to a time before photos and the autographs were proof you met someone. Of course these days they’re more often purchased and signers can make a lot of money providing them. But even an impersonal autograph purchased from a shop is still a bit of a special item when it’s of someone you are a fan of, and I don’t judge anyone for wanting or buying them.

Recently I started thinking about all the autographed items we own now, and one thing led to another and then ultimately – as it often does – to this blog! This week therefore I’ll be showcasing most of the autographs Kristin and I have obtained over the years, in five different categories. We’ll start today with authors!

The above I’ve shown here before. I’m a big fan and collector of Fighting Fantasy books, and I treasure this pair of autographs of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, the two guys that created the series. These were sent to me by an Australian company in response to me tweeting out photos of my collection!

In a similar vein, I have Joe Dever’s autograph. He was the author of the Lone Wolf gamebook series, and some years ago special (expensive!) autographed editions of some of the books were released. To my great surprise Bernard sent me two of them, which means I have his autograph twice. Joe Dever passed away a few years ago, so this is a somewhat special mark to own.

Keeping in the RPG sphere, a decade or so ago I purchased a used copy of this Forgotten Realms AD&D box set and when it arrived I was astonished to see that it had been autographed. The two shown are Jeff Grubb and Ed Greenwood (who also wrote ‘Good gaming’), and it was also autographed by the editor. These may not be names you recognize, but each contributed enormously to Dungeons & Dragons and are well known to fans from that era.

Lastly I have Kim Newman’s autograph. He’s one of my favourite authors, and even though I already owned four imprints of Anno Dracula I naturally had to buy this fifth one when I saw it was autographed. I’d love to meet him in person and get a book autographed, but this is the next best thing!

I know I have at least one more hiding somewhere in this house, that being the author Tanith Lee who sent me a signed letter response to a letter I wrote her in my teens. Try as I could though I was unable to find it.

These are just the tip of the autograph iceberg. There’s many more to see this week, so stay tuned 🙂

Japan Pickups: FF Books

January 19, 2023

The Fighting Fantasy series was popular in Japan in its heyday, and the first 33 titles were translated and released in the early to mid 1980s. As a diehard collector of FF books I’ve been lucky enough to obtain a few of these Japanese versions over the years, but this past trip was by far my most successful in terms of new additions.

The above four were purchased at RPG bookshops (yes, that’s a thing in Japan) in Nakano and Akihabara. Collectively they cost me about $130, with half that being Creature of Havoc (the lower right book). All are in exceptional condition for 35+ year old books, and the (2nd edition) of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain even included a small cardboard ‘postcard’ that can be used to make dice if you don’t have any handy:

Incidentally the obi (paper wraparound) on the cover of Warlock identifies it as a worldwide bestseller, which was absolutely true when this 1984 edition was published.

Creature of Havoc includes images and writeups of the preceeding 23 volumes, as well as adverts for other gamebook series the publisher also licensed (such as Tunnels & Trolls and what looks to be a Japanese book called ‘Dice Fantasy’). It also includes the above advert for a Japanese release of Tasks of Tantalon! I wasn’t aware it had ever been translated; I suppose it now gets added to my ‘list’ 🙂

In addition to the four original FF books, I also bought 4 books in the Sorcery! series: original 1984 imprints and reprints from 2002. As an offshoot from the FF line these are a little bit less expensive these days, and the four in total cost me about $70. As with the FF books these are in pristine condition, with nary a hint they’ve ever been read.

Each of the original books includes a pull-out adventure sheet printed on ‘vellum’ paper with this lovely translated map on the back!

The Shamutanti Hills included this! One of the delights of buying used books is often finding unusual bookmarks from the previous owner inside, and in this case it seems they were using what seems (according to google translate) to be a coupon for a student discount on a ticket to see the Ghibli film Nausicaa upon its original cinematic release in 1984!

One thing I love about Japanese imprints of the FF books is that they are physically smaller than the western ones (even the US versions) and therefore a bit more pocket-sized. And yet the print quality is exceptional and the fine line-art characteristic of the books is reproduced beautifully. In 2000 the (new) Japanese licensor started reprinting some books in a much larger format, and I have to say they look even prettier! You’ll also note an inclusion in the above photo of one of the 2002 reprints: a quick-reference for section numbers on the left side! Why didn’t English versions ever implement this?

In 2021, the Japanese licensor (Group SNE) published a box-set of five new imprints of classic FF books. I really wanted to find this in Japan but failed. Happily though, I found this:

It’s the second box set, which was only released very shortly before we arrived! It reprints Appointment with F.E.A.R., House of Hell, Deathtrap Dungeon, The Port of Peril and Stealer of Souls. It’s a beautiful box, and it’s obvious this collection was produced by a company deeply respectful of the series heritage and importance. It cost ¥8250, or about $64.

The inclusion of Stealer of Souls is notable, since this was book 34 of the original FF line. Japan stopped at book 33 (Sky Lord), so this is the first time this one has even been translated.

Each book includes a pull out ‘vellum’ character sheet and the print quality and ‘feel’ of the volumes is magnificent: many levels above the recent Scholastic versions. Japanese fans of the series are receiving a real treat with this release!

It also includes a small booklet history of the FF series, as well as a general critique of the books and their historical importance. This is the first time I’ve ever seen all the books – including the new ones published in recent years – numbered together in one chronology. This book (which is entirely in Japanese but google translate is magic these days) also mentions that the 2021 box set was ‘printed to order’ and sold out due to ‘high demand from loyal fans’ which explains why I couldn’t find it.

Lastly – and most unexpectedly – I got the above. It’s a Back To The Future choose-your-own-adventure style gamebook published by the licensor of the FF series and using a similar trade dress! It’s rare that I ever discover a book not on gamebooks.org, but here you go! I would imagine this would be of a lot of interest to many different collectors, and yet this was dirt cheap (about $6) compared to everything else in this post.

The entries – 565 in total – are accompanied by stills from the film, and the blurb on the back suggests the goal of the player is to essentially do what Marty accomplished in the movie. It would be interesting to see how the author invented a gamebook out of the plot, but to give you an idea here’s a translation of a random page:

As I said google translate is a wizard these days, and I suspect I could actually play this entire book via the translator. Maybe I should?

I bought every FF (or related) book I saw this past trip, and these are amongst my most prized possessions. They’re not cheap (for books I can’t technically read) but I’ve developed a new approach to my collections recently after having sold out of MTG and a good chunk of my video games. It makes me wonder, had I found myself once again faced with the bounty of pricey Japanese books I saw in 2017, how much less daunting those prices would have been…?

Robot Claw