Item - The Forces of Krill

This is a fantasy CYOA-styled book written for kids (target audience about 10 years old). It stars both a boy and a girl, which I found thoughtfully inclusive. The kids must survive a dangerous swords & sorcery styled world, aiding their uncle in defeating an evil menace. This is a very short book, easily finished in 30 minutes or less, with not a ton of choices to make. When you fail or succeed, you're given a score. I found some typos; the proofreading's not the best. However there are a lot of nicely drawn pictures spicing up the text. Overall not the best CYOA ever, but a decent fantasy jaunt for a young child.

More reviews by amesgames

The third person writing gets rather awkward sometimes and the humor which makes the Zork computer games so great is missing, but this isn't a bad gamebook. The use of familiar locations and a scoring system do bring the games to mind, and, as a cute touch, page 83 includes a trap to catch those who would cheat.

More reviews by Demian

I read this book after The Cavern of Doom. This book is less linear than The Cavern, since it includes two major paths to the conclusion (one is a dungeon crawl while the other is a wilderness adventure). Like that other book, this one is rather easy to complete successfully, but it's nonetheless a fun read. Recommended.

More reviews by Guillermo

I know nothing of the video game Zork. I borrowed this book from a friend as a kid. I found it very underwhelming. The third person narration made me less invested in the characters, although I like that it had both male and female protagonists.

The art was poor and the choices basic. The only fun part is the punishment for cheaters. My friend told me about it while jumping through hoops to explain how he found it by accident. He wasn't cheating, you know.

I wouldn't recommend this one.

More reviews by Kveto

Here I am doing my first review on here.

This is a pretty good book I must say, I always enjoyed playing the old Zork games so I thought, why not try the gamebooks. Sadly, I couldn't manage to find a place to purchase them from, but I found out that all four were up for download on a site, so I just got them from there.

It really does remind me of the Zork games, in story telling and gameplay (even if it is just choices) for instance, adding a score on each "game over" as I will call it, is pretty neat and original which in turn makes it feel more Zork-like. I also like that there was at least one logical choice in this gamebook (I won't give it away) that had you looking at the illustrated picture for help.

My only real complaint with it is length and difficulty. It was easy for me to get through with only one or two deaths in my adventure. Also, it wasn't very long. It was a great read though and I would love to get to reading the other three real soon.

8/10.

More reviews by leon101