Item - Le rendez-vous du chef

(Review based on the Spanish translation).

Published in France at a time when the gamebook boom was still going strong, the first book in the Asterix - Alea Jacta Est series is credited to Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo (though it is clear neither of them contributed directly to this book). According to the Planete LDVELH web page, the actual author of the book is Bruno Faidutti, a famous game designer known for board games such as Mystery of the Abbey and Citadels (among others). Unfortunately, while the idea of having a full-colour gamebook based on Asterix is appealing, I was not very impressed with the final product.

To its credit, the book includes a fairly simple but functional game system. All combats and skill checks are resolved using one die, and you can customize your character's attributes from the beginning. Nonetheless, combats and skill rolls are so tough that in order to survive this adventure you must avoid them at any cost. The consequences of losing a fight or missing a skill check are always severe, and you are likely to have to keep restarting the adventure over and over because of bad luck. The Gauls' magic potion can make your life easier, but the adventure can be quite tough even with it. The adventure design, for its part, does not compensate for the difficulty of the rolls. While the book has many places to explore, a successful path through the adventure will most likely require you to avoid most of the characters and stuff you find. Moreover, while the author tries to bring in some of the humour from the comic book series, the writing was never good enough to keep me engaged.

Overall, this is not really at the level of a good Fighting Fantasy or Lone Wolf book, and you can skip it without regret.

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