1. Monsters of the Marsh
Author: David Tant
Illustrator: Duncan Smith
First Published: 1985
ISBN: 0-00-692385-2
Length: 400 sections
Plot Summary: Transport barges have been disappearing lately, and
since your father was lost with one, you set off to find out what's going on.
Translations: Italian, Spanish
My Thoughts: So far I haven't been able to complete this book, but
since I'm not feeling particularly motivated to, I decided to write a few
comments now in case I never get around to doing it later. I wanted very
much to enjoy this series, if only for the novelty of the coin system. It
suffers greatly from uninspired writing and bad game design, however. As
far as the writing goes, a lot of the text feels summarized; there's very
little detail regarding characters and locations, so you never get much
feeling that you are there. Since the game design mostly seems to involve
wandering randomly around, this is a major problem. It's hard to remember
where you are and where you came from, so you tend to go around in circles.
Drawing a map might help, but it's quite difficult to figure out how to map
what is presented by the book. As if this weren't enough, there are also
problems with the rules (it's very unclear, for example, how and why
timekeeping is supposed to be done) and the continuity (the book doesn't seem
to account for the possibility that you'll inevitably return to certain
encounter areas again and again). A good try, but not a success. Maybe the
later volumes are better; I'm just not sure if I'm going to put the effort in
to work my way up to them.
2. The Black Pyramid
3. Mine of Torments
4. The Garden of Madness