Hi Lauren.

I'm afraid I'm a litle confused as to why you don't want to create a new topic, there is no rule that says you can't and in fact it's usually better to create anew one than try and revive old ones.

Nevertheless I'm glad you like the podcasts.

I actually stuck all my stuff on sendspace, ad there's a post kicking about somewhere with all the links, only for some reason i can't find it.

i'll repost the links if you'd lke though.

Here's everything, actually I found the original post and modified it, but everything's stil on sendspace so you shouldn't have problems picking it up.
first off, I did some reviews for blind cooltech.
Get the bg hearts review  here

Thee ffproject gamebooks review here,
And the x hour review here

I then recorded a review of Smugglers three which you can get here   though for some reason blind cool tech never posted it, stil Sander hosted it and I believe there's stil a link on the smugglers 3 entry (I've been meaning to do one for smugglers 4, but not got around to it yet).

Then, more recently, barry ellis from oneswitch games asked me to do to recordings for his electronic soop podcast sinse they were having a series on visual imparements and gaming. These were more to do with access and what was available than real reviews though.

I did One on complex audio games which you can get here Trying to show that not all audio games are space invaders clones and you can do more complex stuff.

And then I did One on low vision game access which you can get here

That's it thus far, though I do have plans to do more as and when I have some time, though game reviews are always a bit problematic sinse I have to use speakers, and some games I just can't play on speakers at all, even 2D side scrollers can be tricky as in fact you'll hear if you listen to the first Electronic soop podcast.

Love your podcasts to dark. They always make me laugh and are fun to listen to.

thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed them.

As I said, I probably will do some other stuff at some point in the future myself, though when i can't be certain I'm afraid.

victorious, it's fighting fantasy project, not final fantasy project ;D.

Though I admit that would be awsome.

Again, torchlight is something I'm planning to review but haven't got around to doing yet. the principle reason is torchlight takes a lot of mucking about to play, with different web pages etc, but is really worth it for what you get, so I thought a demo would be useful.

I'll try and remember to actually record it ;D.

I will actually have a think about that, though i really need to get my humerous test gamebook finished first jjuust to give people something to read ;D.

I'll try and do that in the next few days, then I'd probably be in a better position to considder some sort of dark grue review.

It is indeed.

I made it just to test the engine, so it is quite silly, but I ought to finish the last few sections just so that it is playable for people.

Hellfire is just evil! and yes, there is a point where you can get stuck in an endless loop, but this is just part of the insanity!
even with saving, I've never finished the game, mostly because the puzles are so horrible.

Aside from this, while I'm not really one to shrink from gore or violence, some of the surreal and nasty moments in hellfire I found really disturbing.

Impudent peasant and the black lobster are both relatively easy, though the author's other book, laire of thtroglodites, is a good bit harder, and though i've finished the other two I've not completed that one.

I've also finished bad moon rising and guarden of bones (both of which were relatively easy), and rebels of the dark chasms and the cold heart of Chaos and hunger of the wolf which were harder, and even Trial of alabas tomb which i had to have some pretty good luck for, as that one has some tough moments.

I've got pretty far in the diamond key, footsteps of a hero and outsider, but have not finished any of these yet.

As to the wrongway go back scifi comedy series, I'd love to play more of these, but I just can't finish wrongway go back annoyingly, and forest of dreams in fact the sequal to hellfire! so I'm avoiding that one lol!

As to the darkgrue program, we did have a discussion about stats, but the problem is finding an engine that would be flexible enough. Ffproject gets round this by restricting things to the fighting fantasy system, but really the ff system is not particularly good, it is only quick and easy (and in fact combat in it is pretty dull).

One advantage of writing your own book and rolling your own stats is you are not restricted. You can have choseable skills as in lone wolf (and in fact the arborell books0, or even a randomly generating map the way torchlight does.

Sometimes this can get too tortuous, ---- the new advanced combat rules for arborell for instance I actually think take too! much time, and would love to see automated), but so long as the author remembers, a lot can be done, and getting this flexibility into the program would just be too difficult.

For instance, in the actual serious gamebook I'm planning currently, one stat you have is social. This is rolled like a combat stat, but depending upon who your talking to, what you ask, and even what your wearing, it can change.

then, you have an overall reputation stat that will rise or lower throwout the story, will affect your social rolls (sinse obviously if people think well of you you'll be more persuasive and politically active), and finally can change the ending.

For instance, if you walk up to the generic guards in assassin's clothes, you won't have much chance persuading them you have an appointment with their boss and getting them to leave, and if you slay tem, well that doesn't make the city think very well of you.

Sinse the book is set in a trade empire around a world of intreague, the character you play is a noble lady and part time assassin, thiere is a lot of this.

it's easy enough in the text to write something like "if your wearing the red garland that indicates indicates loyalty to house Korvan add 3 to your social roll" but doing this in mechanics and having to code everything would be fairly horrible, particularly sinse whiole my gamebook has a lot of social stuff, other people's will not.

I'm personally of the opinion that so long as a roll can be made in seconds with reference to at most one table per move, this is reasonable.

then again, sinse I've done a lot of tabletop rp, this is all prety much second nature to me, as obviously I need to write my own charsheet and keep character stats there to

I do think though if someone doesn't make the litle effort to roll their own stats needed to play something like the arborell books or lone wolf, they're missing out on a lot of fun just for sake of laziness.

As I said, the ffproject books are based on the fighting fantasy system, an old gamebook system from the 80's (though sadly the company who make them are not releasing electronic versions either commercially or freeware, and though I've sent them a amil pointing out the access options I didn't get a reply).

anyway, random death was part of that hole setup really, make a wrong choice and boom!

I['ve got a friend with working eyeballs who I've played through some of those original print books with, and we actually had to cheat and institute a saving system which wasn't there originally, just to prevent so much frustration and redoing of old parts again and again.

Neither arborell nor lone wolf are as bad for this though. In the case of the lw series, this is because they work on a very different basis.
The books form a massive continuous story, and you play as Lone wolf, last of the Kai, an order a litle like a fantasy version of the Jedi.

In the start of the first book, you are an apprentice. There are ten possible skills such as camouflage, hunting, mind over matter and divination, and you choose the 5 you start with. Complete the 1st book, and you get a sixth skill and so on.

Then after book five you start on the higher diciplins of the magnakai, and after book twelve you start on the grand master diciplins.

the point is however, rather than killing you outright in a given situation, or if you haven't got an item, it's about what skills you have. for instance, divination can often tell you what is ahead of you or give information, and a bit which might be deadly without one skill is possible with another.

the arborell books, which have been written far more recently, use something of this system, but also because the author is frankly good (and because the books themsleves are rather long), random death is kept to a minimum, or at least there is usually a clue in the text for people who are paying attention.

The lw books have a slightly more interesting combat system as well (not hugely complex but better than the ff one), where you add up all your characters bonuses from stats, skills, weapons etc, get a combat value, compare this to your enemies, and look it up on a table, and depending upon the difference your rolls of the dice will do more or less damage, rather than just working on a base comparison.

Arborell in their books uses a basic system similar to ff, though you do get to choose skills etc as well, though as an alternative to this system they have recently published (actually in April), a similar system, though in that case you add up about 5 different factors, and look on first an attack table, then a defense table, then a targit table and it's all imho a bit too complex to do for each turn of combat without some automation, ---- in fact I'd love to see someone make a program to handle the arborell combat system sinse it's an interesting idea, and has the potential for very interesting combat, but is imho far too much to do for one person alone.

fortunately though, the gm of arborell does realize this and thus leaves the simplified version in the books which makes things much easier to play.

i'll also say that one of the really impressive things about arborell is the writing.

The gamebooks themselves, the creation of the world, and all the extra documentation surrounding the plot, histories, mythology even language is extremely well put together and has greatly impressed mee all round.

Even in the gamebooks, there is a distinctly interesting flavour, sinse half are from the human perspective, half from the perspective of the human's enemies, the hordim, and indeed both sides are very well defigned with different factions and oppressions.

another interesting point which I'll mention aobut arborell, is that while windhammer, shards of moonlight and murder of crows are very traditional gamebooks, as will be most others in the series, torchlight is entirely different, sinse everything in the game is randomized.

You keep a charsheet as expected, but instead of turning to sections, you roll a couple of D10's to determine what section you go to, and possible roll again if you find a monster or some treasure.

The only hard part is keeping the map, but an xl spreadsheet does this very well.

There is even a free play mode where you can just play the game as if it's a dungeon rpg.

This is a great system, and something very unique in gamebooks, and in fact I'm really looking forward to the next two games in the torchlight series.

the gm is also now working on a single player war game version called armies of the march, though whether this can be accessified in the same way the torchlight game was I'm not sure, and won't know until it's complete.

Well in most gamebooks like lw and the standard arborell ones, there's not really too much moving away from the actual book.

yes, if you find an item you'll have to record it, and if you get damaged you'll need to change your endurence points, but these all take seconds to do, sinse afterall gamebook rules are intended to work as print books where the person has only the book and nothing else, in fact for things like tests of character stats you probably won't even need to consult your charsheet but can just remember the stat, flick to your dice program and then back to the book when you've succeeded or failed.

combat in lw does require the table as well, but again, that doesn't take long.

You can additionally speed up the process with various measures.

For instance, I have gma dice attached to a shortcut key on my desktop, ctrl g, so it's always easy to bring up.

then, sinse you are free to layout your charsheet just as you want, you can do things to make your life easier.

For instance, I've taken to keeping my record of all found items at the very bottom, so if I have to write something new in or delete an item when used I can just press ctrl end.

In both arborell and lw, I've also taken to writing a basic record at the top of the charsheet that I can alter at a moments notice, ---- actually a litle like the notation in Sryth.

Something like this:

cv18 end 19.

Thus, if I get hit I've got something I can alter quickly, or if I need to check my combat value for a fight.

further down the sheet, I'll have a list of all combat and endurance bonuses from armour, skills etc, but writing them at the top means I can look at them instantly.

Torchlight (which I was actually playing yesterday), can be a litle more complex, sinse there you need to have the game, your xl map, dice program and charsheet all open at once, so have lots of alt tabbing to do.

Stil, if you approach things systematically you can minimize the time needed for the mechanics of the game to only seconds, and certainly the writing is more than good enough.

I'd not suggest you begin with torchlight though, as it does take a litle playing if your not used to manually tracking roleplay information.

Try the core arborell gamebook windhammer instead, or possibly lone wolf if you prefer.

good thought.

The one thing I wonder about hyena and playing lw, is could you carry on from book 1 to book 2 with the same items gold etc, pluss a new kai skill?

I'm not sure if this was in the program or not sinse I only ever played the first book with it, and sinse I've played the first lw book a few times I was only really interested in testing theprogram.

just to forstall a couple of questions, the original print lw books didn't have dice, but had the player dropping a pencil on an action chart with various numbers on it to determine a number 1-9 or 0.

of course, you can just roll a D10, but don't be put off when you see the books talking about action charts.

You'll find an htmlified combat results table on the site, but back when i first found lw myself, that wasn't there, so someone on the forums provided me with an ms word version instead.

if you'd prefer an ms word version of the table instead of an html version, let me know and I'll bang it on ss.

I prefer word myself, but then again I'm used to using it.

Let me know how you get on.