Archive for the ‘Otaku’ Category

The Gamebook History Post

Sunday, February 1st, 2015

I’ve read a few blog posts about gamebook collecting in recent months, and thought it was time to make my own.

What’s a gamebook? It’s a solo RPG adventure in book form. Tradaitionally gamebooks are distinct from ‘choose your own adventures’ in that they have some sort of system associated with them (usually keeping track of statistics and items, or rolling dice), but strict classification isn’t easy to do and the lines blur here and then with particular books.

While not the very first gamebook, the genre can be traced back to this particular book, which came out way back in 1982:

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I was 10 at the time, and bought my first book – the exact version picture above – via the scholastic book club at school. It changed my life!

All of a sudden I didn’t just have to read about fantasy adventures involving orcs and elves and demons and dragons, I could play them as well! I was too young at the time to know that the authors were entrenched in interests I would eventually adopt myself (not the least being Dungeons & Dragons), and merely got swept away by the magic of the book with it’s vivid descriptions of peril, chaos and heroism and the astonishing (to this day) artwork contained within. I must have read through the book dozens and dozens of times, and the joy I experienced was only surpassed by the discovery that there would be more books like it published soon afterward.

I eagerly bought every Fighting Fantasy (as the series was dubbed) book as they were released, initially via the school book club and soon thereafter (once gamebooks had become a phenomenon) in the bookstores. Other series began (Lone Wolf, Way Of The Tiger, Falcon etc.) and I bought them too. I quickly built up a sizeable collection and it became perhaps my biggest hobby. I even wrote two books of my own (sequels to Scorpion Swamp and Forest Of Doom), compiled a bestiary (prior to the publication of Out Of The Pit) and even copied the art to hang it on my wall:

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The above was taken in 1987, when I was fifteen and still clearly still enjoying my gamebooks. I was quite proud of my collection and it was displayed prominently in my room. I even saved related miscellany, including the adverts in magazines, reviews in newspapers, related magazines (Warlock and Proteus) and even an iron-on patch I was given at a bookstore when I purchased a book once.

Then I ‘grew up’, life moved on (ie. girls were invented) and my gamebook hobby – as it did for many of my generation – took a back seat. By my first college years I still had my gamebooks but rarely purchased any new ones, and when I left Australia in ’93 I left them to my brother. Even then I didn’t consider selling them, because they were still an important (and very happy!) memory of my young adolescent years. I’m not 100% sure what happened to the collection. I know most of the Fighting Fantasy titles would move into AW’s care (where the collection remains to this day), but I don’t know what Bernard ever did with all the others.

Fast forward a few years. I moved to America, got married and a job and became immersed in video games (& video game collecting). But I never forgot about the gamebooks, and the memories were always good ones. When I first returned to Oz in 2000 I brought back two books with me (ironically Scorpion Swamp and Forest of Doom) that I purchased for a song at a used bookstore, and reading them – maybe 10 years since I last had – was just as much fun as it ever was. In those days the gamebook fad had died; no new books were being published (killed as they had been by video games and the passage of time) and even on the internet it was difficult to find much enthusiasm. It seemed they would live on in my memories only.

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When next I returned to Australia (in 2006), things had changed quite a bit. A British publisher (Wizard books) had purchased the rights to Fighting Fantasy books and had started republishing a few years prior. I was quite excited by this, and purchased many on that trip. In addition, when in Newcastle on that trip I bought every single gamebook (from any series) I found in used bookstores, including doubles of some. Upon returning to Sydney, I gave AW almost all of them as a gift, keeping only the doubles for myself (and of course the new imprints of FF books). I may not have realized it at that moment, but this was the start of my modern collection.

Within a few months of arriving back in America I had started buying books online, mostly (in those days) via ebay. I started with Fighting Fantasy books, and my goal was initially just the titles I had never read/owned but quickly became to build a full set of all books. This was still several years prior to the gamebook renaissance, and I was able to get books at astonishing prices (such as Night Dragon for only $3!). I remember watching auctions of lots of books – in which I only needed one or two – go buy with only my bid and winning for much less than I was prepared to pay. Those were fun days, and within only a few months I had close to a full collection of the Fighting Fantasy series. Some books remained elusive though, and it would take almost 8 years to complete the collection, by which point I had numerous imprints of many of the books including (almost) the entire US series.

I’d been well-and-truly bitten by the gamebook bug though, and long before finishing my FF collection I started on the other series. I dove in headfirst, and agressively hunted down the books from other major series such as Lone Wolf, Falcon, Skyfall, Grailquest and Golden Dragon. I discovered Demian’s webpage and it became sort of a shopping list for me. I was buying books on ebay and amazon mostly from overseas (Canada, England and Australia), and still trawling the used shops in Australia on my annual visits (I returned with 36 books in January 2011).

My collection continued to grow. By this time many of you knew about it, and I was helped significantly by Adam (who gave me many books, including returning the ones I’d given him in ’06), Bernard (who dug deep and bought me a few missing and expensive titles) and Florence (who astonished me with this graduation gift). It was getting harder and harder to find books I didn’t have, and my ‘recent aquisition’ piles tended to include more and more obscure series:

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So we come to today. You can view my entire collection here. I don’t know how many there are – over 300 at last count – and the website I created (to assist me when I am traveling) isn’t even complete (since it doesn’t list duplicates or all FF imprints I own). I’m still actively buying books to fill in the blanks in my collection, and have even started buying the reprints of old series being published by Morris and Thompson. The collection is physically quite large now, long having outgrown the full-sized bookshelf once dedicated to it. I really need to sort it at all and work out how to store it better…

To pre-empt questions from those that may read this:

Q: Do you read them all?

A: Yes – and no. I have played through every FF book and most of the books from other landmark series, but I haven’t yet played all Lone Wolf books, or every book from every series. However there isn’t a series I haven’t played at least one (if not more) books from, including the standalone gamebooks.

Q: What are your favourites?

A: You can’t go wrong with Fighting Fantasy titles, especially the fantasy ones from earlier in the series (pre #30). If someone was only ever going to read one gamebook, I’d always recommend the grand-daddy of them all Warlock Of Firetop Mountain. That said the other series I would recommend are the Blood Sword books (which have a deservedly high reputation), the Virtual Reality (now called Critical IF) books, the (Lovecraftian) Forbidden Gatewayย series and the recent Destiny Quest series. But to be honest, I love all gamebooks, even the ‘bad’ ones ๐Ÿ™‚

Q: What about Choose Your Own Adventures?

A: You can’t spend a decade buying gamebooks online or in used bookstores without eventually picking up some titles that blur the line between gamebook and choose-your-own-adventure. You’ll see on my website I have a few, and there are others I didn’t bother listing. Typically I find the traditional choose-your-own-adventure titles to be too childish for my interests, but some books that use the mechanic (notable Life’s Lottery by Kim Newman) are every bit as entertaining as a ‘real book’.

Q: What’s the most you’ve paid for a book?

A: Not much, maybe $20 at the very most, probably less. As I said above, I bought most of the books that are now very pricey long before people started collecting again in earnest, and got them for a song. I feel sorry for those that want to obtain something like an original Knights Of Doom or Deathmoor today). I know some of the gaps in my collection could easily be filled with a single click on amazon or ebay, but I’m not going to pay big $$$ for a book just to own it (yet).

Q: What are your most-wanted gamebooks that you don’t yet have?

A: In no particular order, these are the five that have eluded me but I haven’t yet given up on:

Trial Of Champions (original US imprint)
Sorcery box set with spellbook (I consider myself owning it ‘in spirit’ since AW has the one I bought years ago)
Blood Sword #5 (prohibitively expensive; may be reissued soon)
– high number Lone Wolf books (again, prohibitively expensive)
Citadel Of Chaos (US Wizard reissue, early 2000s. Jonathan Green mentions it’s existence in You Are The Hero, but does it actually exist?)

But the true Holy Grail would be a foreign imprint book. There’s hundreds of thousands of them out there – Warlock was published in dozens of languages – but I’ve never found one. I’ve particularly like a Japanese version, and have invested some time checking used shops and hobby stores during my many trips to that country (all to no avail). One day this may be mine:

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(Incidentally I do own the English language – and some JP imprints – of the Queen’s Blade books, as well as a number of Lost World gamebooks. I should probably add them to the website…)

Well that’s enough for a history. The collection is old and quite complete, but I consider it active and ever-growing. If you’ve got any questions add them in the comments, or via twitter if that’s what got you here.

And may your stamina never fail ๐Ÿ˜‰

 

My Very Own Odo

Saturday, January 24th, 2015

One of the more unexpected items I received for Christmas was this vinyl model kit:

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Yes it’s everyone’s favourite changeling, ‘Constable’ Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space 9. This kit was made in 1995 and KLS bought it new for under a tenner! Here’s the contents of the box:

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Not a bad likeness is it?

I’ve assembled vinyl kits before, and immediately a problem was apparent. The age of the vinyl had made it hard and brittle, and there was no way I’d be able to cut off the flash without softening it first. So it was time to give Odo a hot bath:

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A few minutes at a light boil was enough to soften the vinyl enough for the razor blade:

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And soon the pieces were ready for gluing:

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The second problem became apparent at this point: the kit wasn’t well designed. To be specific, some of the pieces didn’t fit well, and the fact they needed gluing (as opposed to using ball joints) was poor design in the first place! I soldiered on carefully though, and soon got to this point:

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A bit more glue and some time drying and assembly was complete:

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What’s that you say? “Where’s his legs?” The fact is the waist joints just didn’t match at all, and even if they had the upper half is so much heavier he wouldn’t ever stand so… I tossed his legs in the bin! I was happy with half an Odo ๐Ÿ™‚

But I wasn’t finished yet! I was serious about this kit, and carefully began to paint him…

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And mere minutes later, my very own Odo was complete:

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Look at his flaming hair! His jaundiced skin! His inky-black jacket with red piping and silver trim. As one would expect from a design of my very own, Odo looks majestic.

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Now before some of you get all ‘but that’s not canon’ on me, please be aware that this isn’t supposed to be Odo from the TV episodes.

No my friends, this is Odo from my unpublished DS9 fan fiction script entitled “Elegy of The Vampire Savior”. That’s the one in which Odo teams up with Space Dracula to save the colonists of the fourth moon of Nosferon from being enslaved by a tyrannical computer. This particular outfit is the one Odo wore during the logic battle with the Machine Brain, immediately after his fated lover Udu died in his arms.

If you’d like more details, please let me know.

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I didn’t ever expect to get my very own Odo for Christmas. And now I wonder how I ever lived without him!

Treasure!

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014

I went to the bank earlier, and walked out with a $1 coin. This isn’t much news to the Australians, but here in the US we’re still cursed with paper $1 bills.

The coins do exist though, and are mostly ignored by the public. I bought one because I collect them….

Yes this is another post about one of my strange collections!

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Back in 1999 the US Mint started releasing a series of 50 quarters to commemorate every state. Five were released every year, and apparently they became the most collected coins in US history, with about half of all Americans (!) collecting a set. And at least one Australian…

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I didn’t go out of my way to collect them, since they were (and still are) extremely common. I just kept one of each as I got them in change, putting them into the little book I had purchased.

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The set was followed by 6 ‘district and territory’ quarters and now we’re in the middle of a series of 60 (or more!) ‘America The Beautiful’ quarters featuring state parks and other notable natural attractions within the US. Compared to the state quarters both of these follow up sets seem much rarer and I haven’t made any effort to collect either.

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The Presidential Dollar series began in 2007 and was intended to promote acceptance amongst the population of a $1 coin. Five new coins were to be released a year but the coins were a failure and after 5 years circulation ended. The coins are still made, but for the collectors market only.

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In theory I could fill that book just with coins if receive in change or at the bank. They are difficult to find these days though, so I doubt I will.

The last US coin book I have is this:

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I’m not sure why or when I got this book, but I have made an attempt to fill it:

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This is not a collection I put any effort into!

In addition to these I have a nearly complete set of Australian 20c, 50c, $1 and $2 coins. If only someone made little collecting books as nice as the ones I have for US coins.

I could probably do a dozen or more posts about other weird collections I have. They’ll have to wait for next Christmas ๐Ÿ™‚

Worse Than The Pezzes?

Sunday, December 21st, 2014

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That’s a shot of a hot wheels car I recently purchased. It’s beautiful isn’t it? Bernard certainly thought so, as he unwrapped the one I sent him yesterday! Looking at the back he saw the other models and seemed to love this one even more:

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Maybe I should have sent him all of them?

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So you’re thinking “Why did he buy these?” and the answer is quite simply that I don’t know. No one knows. But I did and now they live in the same box as the Star Wars pezzes I showcased the other day…

Now the story should have ended here. But, sadly, there’s more. I went out shopping the other day and beheld an employee putting out new product in the toy section:

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OMG! More – different – SW hot wheels?!? I don’t like toy cars, never buy them but once again was suckered by the packaging! (Plus they were only $0.88 each!)

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The cars aren’t even anything special! But I dug through the display like a mad ferret and hastily gathered all eight:

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So that’s 13 (dreadful) Star Wars themed hot wheels I’ve bought in the past two months. As I delicately placed them into a storage box where they all reside for all eternity I dearly hoped I’d never buy any more ever again ๐Ÿ™‚

2014 in Games

Saturday, December 20th, 2014

During 2014, my game collection saw its smallest growth in 17 years, but I ended up spending more in total than I had in the last 4 years. How was this possible?

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That’s the answer: I went into 2014 without a Vita (PSV), and will leave the year with a Vita and 20 games for it. This isn’t to say I adore the system (it has many flaws…), but it does have many of the sorts of games I like to play and since I believe the system is dead, I rushed to buy them all this year before they became difficult to find.

In total I bought 46 games in 2014 and spend a total of $1613.90. That’s an average cost of $35, which is a big increase over previous years. This is because I bought zero iOS games this year, and instead concentrated on 3DS and PSV software.

Here’s the charts:

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That’s the breakdown of units sold per system, with the Vita at 20 and the DS at 1. Despite being owned for longer than the Vita, at only 5 games purchased the Wii U isn’t seeing much use…

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That’s the dollars spend breakdown, and you can see the Vita ate the lion’s share of my spending. The tiny sliver for the DS is because the only game I bought cost $5 ๐Ÿ™‚

As for the games themselves, and my playing habits, looking back on 2014 I would have to say it was a mixed bag. The entire first half of the year (and into summer) was a bit of a drought, with me not playing much at all. In particularly I barely ever turned on the consoles (PS3 and Wii U) during those days.

But then something clicked after my summer vacations and I found myself become re-interested in gaming as the year moved into the fall. In particularly I very much enjoyed some Vita games like Toukiden and Demon Gaze and by mid fall the 3DS had me entirely under it’s spell with two masterpieces (see below).

BeforeI get to my favourites, two games deserve a special mention…

The first is Super Smash Bros for 3DS. This year Nintendo released Smash Bros on both 3DS and Wii U. I purchased the 3DS version, and will eventually get the Wii U version as well. The 3DS version however was, in my opinion, a bit of a square peg in a round hole. While Nintendo did an admirable job of stuffing a massive amount of content in, the game suffered from poor controls and a design not ideal for such a small screen and I put it aside quickly, with the intent of saving myself for the Wii U version.

The other game is Puzzle & Dragons, last year’s game of the year winner. Yes I’m still playing it (>580 days played now), yes I’m still loving it and yes I still think you should play it too. But I won’t include it in favourite lists this year since it disqualifies having won last year!

So my favourite games of 2014, in reverse order:

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3) Hyrule Warriors (Wii U)

This one came out of nowhere! Koei stuffed Zelda into the Dynasty Warriors engine and produced a game almost better than both! If you like hack-and-slash games then this one is for you, and the astonishing amount of content could take hundreds upon hundreds of hours to beat. Bravo Nintendo!

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2) Theatrhythym Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (3DS)

Curtain Call took everything that was good about the first game, multiplied by ten, and produced maybe the best sequel ever. I played this like a demon, leveling every character to maximum (sometimes more), SSS ranking every song and collecting all the cards. This is a music game ever that can stand along side Ouenden, and took over my life for a month or so earlier this year. While I was playing this I would have said it was a no-brainer for game of the year, but then something else came out…

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1) Fantasy Life (3DS)

Level 5 have created an action RPG with near perfect controls, beautiful graphics, and vast amounts of stuff to see and do. In addition to the usual systems (fighting monsters, casting spells, talking to NPCs etc) the game includes twelve classes (from Paladin to Cook) and you can go fishing, brew potions, make (hundreds and hundreds) of items, armor and weapons and recruit followers. It starts off easy and a little confined, but after a dozen or so hours of play you realize how mind-bogglingly big it is and how much time you’d need to max everything. Which I did. Including all the expansion ($9 on the 3DS store) content! All told I played for about 150 hours before putting it aside, but I suspect one day I’ll return just to finish off the (very difficult!) ‘Master Quests’. This isn’t just the best game I played this year – this is one of the best games I have ever played. Highly recommended.

As I always do I’ll end with a question: how was your year in games? What were your favourites in 2014?