Item - The Cavern of Doom

The Cavern of Doom starts with June and Bill once again noticing something odd about the Ring of Zork Syovar gifted to them. It's turning weird colors. They hope it means they get to go back. And it does. And as a bonus, there doesn't even seem to be any truly pressing threat to Zork!

But there is the matter of the Cavern of Doom. During story time with Syovar, he mentions how some of his best knights and wizards have gone in there. None returned. That includes your friends Fred and Max. However, if you bug Syovar enough, he'll let you in. And as a bonus, you get the glowing evil-detecting amulet from Zork I. It gives good clues what to do, whether or not it glows (e.g. don't attack non-evil things, even if they seem kind of scary or annoying. That includes the final entity you face. I don't want to spoil this, because it's pretty neat, and the gamebook is not hard to find on the Internet.)

The progression and "you deserve another chance" pushes you back more than you'd expect, but that's part of the price to pay for the structure, where you're rewarded for the occasional detour. It sort of feels like picking up a valuable item in a text adventure side room. You have items to find, and if you're missing one, you are forced into a bad ending, or a choice of bad endings. Then you are kicked back several choices. Some of the branches for finding an item rely on having found a previous one.

The thief, the dragon and, of course, grues all make cameos. The big confrontation is something separate from anything found in the Zork games. It's surprisingly touching. There's a slightly silly choice at the end as at least one of the passages sounds like a bad idea to visit--and it is. The usual "Are you sure, Biv/Juran?" "Yes, don't be a scaredy-cat" works.

CoD was the first Zork book I read, and I remember liking it so much that I waited eagerly for the local bookstore to get #1 and #2 on backorder. It was a bit confusing, since it referred to characters from those books, but I didn't need that information to enjoy walking through--and of course I wanted to see the adventures with those characters I'd missed! That included the "old friend" you met when you took the option to cheat and claim you've found an item not in the book.

CoD is peppered with Zork references I missed when younger. The play presented on page 14 is in fact the Wizard of Frobozz being a jerk to you in Zork 2. Leblong and Burlong, the twin dragons, refer to implementors David Lebling and Michael Berlyn. I bet I missed a few things, but I enjoyed what I caught.

More reviews by andrewschultz

This is another good book in the series, capturing the "dungeon crawl" style of gaming quite entertainingly. For those who care, page 87 includes another cheater trap.

More reviews by Demian

This is a very entertaining dungeon crawl, filled with gruesome deaths which are fun to read (who reads gamebooks only for the good endings, anyway?). The adventure is designed so that you need to collect a series of items to complete it, meaning that it should be appealing to Fighting Fantasy readers. There is only one way to victory, but finding it should not be too difficult if you are familiar with the way the minds of gamebook authors work. Overall, this is a worthwhile read, up to par with the Endless Quest series.

More reviews by Guillermo