1. Castle Arcania
Book One: You Are Eric Sunsword, Legendary Knight of the Northern Marches
Book Two: You Are Neves, An Ancient and Powerful Wizard
Author: James M. Ward
Illustrator: Larry Day
First Published: April, 1985
ISBN: 0-394-54565-6
Length: 160 pages per book
Plot Summary: A good knight and a devious wizard enter the ancient
Castle Arcania and battle to the death over the woman they both love,
Princess Mara.
My Thoughts: This isn't a bad start to the series, though it's not
particularly spectacular in any way. The most interesting aspect of the
adventure is probably the fact that there's a lot of tactical strategy to the
game. Players can independently move the various characters that they
control in different directions through Castle Arcania, setting traps for
each other and generally being sneaky and clever; in fact, it almost feels
like a board game at times. However, this freedom of movement means that the
story itself is pretty weak, and most of the events in it are fairly
unengaging encounters with monsters. I was particularly disappointed that,
upon defeating my enemy, there was no victory text; the game simply ended
without any sense of closure. The rules provided here are fairly clear,
being less confusing than some later volumes, but ambiguities do creep in
occasionally. I'd also have to say from experience that this isn't the best
set in the series to play by e-mail; turns are short and numerous, and it
drags out far longer than it would in a face-to-face setting. You can see
the results of my e-mail game by following the link below...
Game Log: Andy Sekela vs. Demian Katz
2. Battle for the Ancient Robot
Book One: You Are E-Ben, Attack Robot from the Planet Cybos
Book Two: You Are Mikael, Earth's Greatest Star Pilot
Author: James M. Ward
Illustrators: Mark Nelson and Sam Grainger
First Published: June, 1985
ISBN: 0-394-54837-X
Length: 160 pages per book
Plot Summary: Champions of two star-faring races scour the galaxy
for pieces of the Ancient Robot, a powerful and dangerous artifact of a lost
civilization.
My Thoughts: Of the first four sets in this series, this is my
favorite by far. As in much of James M. Ward's work, the writing is pretty
minimalistic, and the encounters are cheesy. However, since this has a sort
of Flash Gordon feel to it, the simplicity and cheesiness actually work well
to support the flavor of the adventure. The plot isn't too important anyway;
it's the gameplay that really shines. The players must race to find robot
parts as quickly as possible, and each robot part acquired adds new
capabilities to a player's team. This keeps things tense throughout the
game and adds a welcome element of strategy to the proceedings. Sadly,
though, things aren't absolutely perfect. As with most of the series, rules
ambiguities pop up here and there, breaking the flow of what is otherwise a
really entertaining head-to-head challenge. This seems to be one of the most
common entries in the series, as it pops up frequently on eBay and in other
places. If you can find a partner willing to negotiate around vague rules,
you should definitely pick up a copy and give it a try.
Game Log: Andy Sekela vs. Demian Katz
3. Revenge of the Red Dragon
Book One: You Are Flametongue, An Ancient Red Dragon
Book Two: You Are Raven Quickblade, The Black Knight
Author: James M. Ward
Illustrator: Valerie Valusek
First Published: September, 1985
ISBN: 0-394-54950-3
Length: 158 pages per book
Plot Summary: One player, as the Black Knight, flees towards his
castle after reclaiming a stolen family treasure while the other, as the
Red Dragon, attempts to reclaim a friend the Knight kidnapped on the way
out.
Translation: French
My Thoughts: I've only played through this once, and I died rather
quickly, so my evaluation may be flawed. From what I saw, however, I'd have
to say that this is a fun, if flawed, set. On the positive side, the game
has some good player interaction through mini-games and frequent battles, and
its turn-taking structure makes it ideal for e-mail or telephone-based games.
On the down side, many of the rules are rather ambiguous (though it's not too
hard to deal with these problems if the players can agree on what to do), and
the story is rather weak, being mainly a seemingly random sequence of
encounters eventually leading to a confrontation between the two player
characters. This definitely isn't the best entry in the series, but it's not
bad.
Game Log: Andy Sekela vs. Demian Katz
4. Challenge of Druid's Grove
Book One: You Are Renwood, A Powerful Druid
Book Two: You Are Ar-Kane, A Great Wizard
Author: James M. Ward
Illustrator: Mark Nelson
First Published: November, 1985
ISBN: 0-394-54951-1
Length: 158 pages per book
Plot Summary: A wizard and a druid race to stop the evil forces
growing in the Forest of Lath, each also hoping to capture the other in order
to gain ransom money for his own faction.
Translation: French
My Thoughts: This third fantasy adventure is really just more of the
same -- lots of random encounters and item collection culminating in a big
fight. It does manage to distinguish itself a little bit by creating a
larger overall goal than "kill the other player" and by giving each
PC a powerful collection of spells to play with, but, while fun, it's not
particularly noteworthy. The writing isn't quite as bland as some of the
author's earlier work, but it still doesn't convey much in the way of plot.
Also, as I've grown to expect from these books, the gameplay is functional
but full of errors and ambiguity. If you've enjoyed other adventures in the
series, you'll probably like this one too; if not, don't waste your time.
Errata: The most spectacular error on display here is the fact that
the books have the wrong covers -- Ar-Kane is on the cover of the Renwood
book and vice versa. Other problems include the fact that Ar-Kane's
character sheet fails to list the amount of damage done by his dagger, the
fact that both books say that the character they contain goes first (which is
right?) and the fact that the Renwood book directs the Ar-Kane player to turn
to page 118 for the final battle (it should be page 134).
Game Log: Andy Sekela vs. Demian Katz
5. Dragonsword of Lankhmar
Book One: You Are Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Book Two: You Are Thieves' Guild Assassins
Author: James M. Ward
Illustrators: Keith Parkinson (covers), Mark Nelson (interior)
First Published: February, 1986
ISBN: 0-394-55240-7
Length: 158 pages per book
Plot Summary: Fritz Leiber's famous thieves are after a fabled
treasure, but their quest is hindered by the efforts of a series of greedy
assassins.
Translation: French
My Thoughts: This is an interesting change of pace. For one thing,
the writing has a lot more flavor than I expected from its usually very
minimalist author. More importantly, the gameplay feels different. While
earlier books have set two relatively evenly-matched teams with similar goals
against one another, this one instead gives one player control of heroes on a
quest while forcing the other player to try to guess the location of the
heroes in order to block their path with villainous foes. Whenever one set
of bad guys is defeated, another one takes their place, and whenever the
villains fail to locate the heroes, bad things tend to happen to them. This
is actually entertainingly cartoony in feel. Had I played this in person
rather than by e-mail, I would certainly have yelled "curses, foiled
again!" on several locations. Yes, I admit that I am a ham. Anyway,
while I didn't find the gameplay quite as engaging as that of Battle for
the Ancient Robot, I did enjoy this set quite a bit.
Game Log: Andy Sekela vs. Demian Katz
6. The Amber Sword of World's End
Book One: You Are Uthrac, Barbarian Warrior
Book Two: You Are Garth, Master of the North Wind
Author: Michael P. Price
Illustrator: Darlene
First Published: May, 1986
ISBN: 0-394-55410-8
Length: 158 pages per book
Plot Summary: Two heroes wander through the icy lands of World's End
in search of a valuable magical weapon.
Translation: French
My Thoughts: Although this is the first book in the series to be
written by someone other than James M. Ward, it doesn't stand out at all.
After the slightly unusual feel of the last set, it's back to evenly matched
characters on the same quest, and it's really fairly boring. There are a few
nice touches like enjoyable trips to weird exterior dimensions, but for the
most part it's just two players trudging randomly around in search of each
other or the objective. Disappointingly, the one game I played ended
abruptly before either of us could win. I think it's a bad design decision
to put instant game-ending sections in a set of two-player gamebooks; the
result is inevitably anti-climactic.
Game Log: Andy Sekela vs. Demian Katz
7. Warlords
8. The Doomsday Device
9. The King Takes a Dare
10. Dragonwand of Krynn
11. Prisoner of Pharaoh's Tomb
