Mr. Buckethead Adventure Game Series

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This interactive comic book series, published by Cybergecko, is part of a charming, low-budget superhero franchise involving a guy with a bucket for a head. Each volume contains both a solo adventure in comic form and, as a bonus, several monsters which can duke it out in a multiplayer Monster Fight Game. The solitaire adventures feature a fairly standard game system -- the reader keeps track of Fun Points, Money and Action Points. Fun points are more or less like hit points; when Mr. Buckethead runs out, he has to spend money to go on vacation to recover. Action Points allow Mr. Buckethead to perform special actions, which are handled by a neat mechanic in which the reader flips ahead a given number of sections and looks for an icon. If an icon matching the power that he or she is trying to use is there, the action is successful; if not, it fails; either way, a point is spent. In addition to these three stats, players also keep track of Mr. Buckethead's inventory and companions, plus they gather Major Victory Points upon the completion of milestone events. Only one Major Victory Point can be earned in each adventure. Perhaps the most exciting thing about this series is its potential for expansion -- there is no ending to any of the volumes, and players may wander from book to book at will; it's not as tight a world as the Fabled Lands series, but it's still lots of fun to explore.

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1. Mr. Buckethead Goes to the Moon
Author: Alex Strang
Illustrator: Alex Strang
First Published: 2002
ISBN: 0-9718637-0-9
Length: 216 panels (plus two bonus chapters and four Monster Fight monsters)
Number of Endings: 0
Plot Summary: Mr. Buckethead gets to choose between visiting the candy store or the toy store; somehow, this eventually leads him to prehistoric jungles and the dangerous surface of the moon.
My Thoughts: This is a lovely little book. It brings a lot of different gamebooks to mind -- its illustration-oriented, terse and often surreal style is comparable to the Be an Interplanetary Spy series, its inter-volume compatibility reminds one of Fabled Lands, and its Monster Fight Game is vaguely similar to the Lost Worlds combat books (though less complex). Although the book can't entirely live up to the expectations inherent in such comparisons (what could?), it nonetheless manages to be very entertaining and to have a flavor all its own. Each trip through the book is short and weird, and fun little mini-games pop up here and there. It didn't take me very long to win the book's Major Victory Point (perhaps due to good luck), but I still feel that I have lots of exploring left to do before I've exhausted the adventure's potential. If this series is successful enough to spawn further volumes, the entertainment value will only increase exponentially. Not everyone will be satisfied by the short-on-text-and-plot, large-on-big-monsters-and-chaos approach, but kids (and kids-at-heart) are bound to have lots of fun here. More, please!

2. Mr. Buckethead vs. Doctor Neuron
Author: Alex Strang
Illustrator: Alex Strang
First Published: 2002
ISBN: 0-9718637-1-7
Length: 216 panels (plus five bonus chapters and four Monster Fight monsters)
Number of Endings: 0
Plot Summary: Mr. Buckethead has the opportunity to Kung-Fu fight, drive a race car, amass an army of Smile Face Zombies, and battle the evil Doctor Neuron, among other things....
My Thoughts: The first thing of note about this volume is that it has a lower cover price than the previous book despite being the same length, which means you get the same quality for less cost -- very nice! As far as content goes, this is very much a worthy successor to the previous adventure. The challenge level is a bit higher (I still haven't managed to collect the Major Victory Point, which I suspect is much trickier here than it was last time around), but the flavor and diversity remain the same. The pace is fast, the feeling of discovery and exploration is strong, and the mini-games keep things exciting. I didn't find any really strong connections to the previous book, so this stands alone well, though having multiple books is certainly useful if only because it offers different ways of gathering money and other assets. In any case, there's much fun to be had here, and I really recommend trying this series out -- it has a really unique feel, but at the same time, it borrows successful elements from some of the classics. I hope new books keep coming!