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6 Nov 2016 - 14 Nov 2016
Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5
Choose from one of four heroes to battle their way to the top of the reknown Firetop Mountain. Confront the wizard, complete your quest, and locate the three keys scattered across the dungeons.
This is a neat little cross between a choose-your-own adventure gamebook and a tabletop adventure. And, while it can be frustrating, it is fun.
What distinguishes it from another gamebook (like Lone Wolf) are two things: the battle system and the game saves.
I love the battle system, and want to see more like it in other games. Turns are resolved simultaneously, so there's a bit of strategy that goes into every blow. Instead of rolling dice to see if you hit, the choice of where to strike a blow is left up to the player - and thus they have only themselves to blame if they end up striking an empty square (as moves are often resolved before attacks) or if they've left themselves open for an attack.
This kind of battle system would never work on an actual tabletop; for one, the word "simultaneous" means something different in the world of boardgames. But in this game, it works, and provides both a challenge and a feeling of involvement that another system might lack.
As to the save system: I'm not wild about it. There are two parts: the benches and the resurrection stones. The benches are basically checkpoints, where the hero will be restored if they die. But you only have so many chances: the resurrection stones are finite, and once they run out, you have to start over from scratch.
Admittedly, the game isn't very long (a successful run can be done in two hours or so). But it's not an easy game, by any means: until you learn the proper responses for some of the prompts - and not all prompts are available for every hero - you may find yourself embroiled in one too many battles that chip away at your stamina until you're dead. And then you have to do everything, in the same order, all over again.
It can get very repetitive. But it does accurately represent a gamebook. I remember flipping through the physical copies I would check out from a library, placing my finger at a critical decision point, dying, flipping back to the decision, making another choice, placing another finger at another critical point - there was a lot of savescumming going on in those private game sessions. I don't know what else you would call it; maybe "cheating" is appropriate.
Here, though, you have to play the gamebook as intended. No save slots, just a single checkpoint. If you want to play through things differently after that point, well, OK, go ahead. But until you reach another checkpoint, you may have to do it all over again.
It's a good diversion, but it is very short, even with the additional heroes. Once you learn the proper responses, you can breeze through even faster, and then it's up to the battle system to entertain you - and I think it's up to the task.
The additional sidequest of finding the keys (to open the warlock's chest of treasures) is an interesting attempt at increasing playtime, but seems unlikely to be enough to convince many players to go through the adventure more than two or three times.
All in all: I liked it, it's fun, and I look forward to more games with this kind of presentation and battle system. People who are less sure should wait for a sale, but I think it's a good purchase even at full price.