a sentimental collection from my youth

stuh505 · Fri 22/04/2005 00:09:19

when I was a kid, my parents would always drag me around to garage sales to buy stuff, because we didn't have a lot of money and maybe they thought they could appease my childish hunger for new toys that way

well, I always hated garage sales because they made my feel cheap...but there was one thing I got which I may have never found otherwise, which was a beat up old book of Lone Wolf, Flight from the Dark, missing the cover, filled with scribbles, and some very dirty stains on it that I think was poop.

I was 11 years old then and I played that book and loved it.Ã,Â when I discovered there were more of them, I started saving up my allowance to buy them...and I would regularly call my local bookstore to see ifÃ,Â they had them in stock and try to order them

as the new books came out I bought them up, but I never managed to get them all...I was missing a few which bothered me because I wanted to get the true experience by playing them all in order from first to last.

Back then the internet was still pretty new and I couldn't go search around for things across the world that way.Ã,Â If I could have, there's no doubt I would have the whole series already.

I've just discovered that there's another 10 books in the series (putting the total up to about 30) which I never even knew of.Ã,Â Apparently, they weren't even published in the US.

Well, now I want to get them...fill in all the holes in the series...and play the whole damn thing from start to finish like I always wanted to!

I've been calling around and managed to get some pretty good deals on some of the missing books.

My collection as it stands:

1. Flight from the Dark
2. Fire on the Water
3. The Caverns of Kalte
4. The Chasm of Doom
5. Shadow on the Sand
6. The Kingdom's of Terror (in the mail)
7. Castle Death
8. The Jungle of Horrors
9. The Cauldron of Fear
10. The Dungeons of Torgar
11. The Prisoners of Time
12. The Masters of Darkness
13. The Plague Lords of Ruel
14. The Captives of Kaag (in the mail)
15. The Darke Crusade
16. The Legacy of Vashna
17. The Deathlord of Ixia
18. Dawn of the Dragons
19. Wolf's Bane (trade in progress)
20. The Curse of Naar (in the mail)
21. Voyage of the Moonstone (don't have)
22. The Buccaneers of Shadaki (trade in progress)
23. Midnight's Hero (don't have)
24. Rune War (don't have)
25. Trail of the Wolf (don't have)
26. The Fall of Blood Mountain (don't have)
27. Vampirium (don't have)
28. The Hunger of Sejanoz (don't have)

The ones in the mail are books I have never played...I hope that I can hold out on playing them until I have completed the series.

I'm almost ashamed to be spending this money on such small things, but...it makes me so happy to have things like this to hold on to

cosmicr · Fri 22/04/2005 01:37:05

when I was a kid I remember reading/playing books called 'Choose your own Adventure'. I thought they were cool, but didnt compare to the sierra agi/sci games which were true adventure games.

Kinoko · Fri 22/04/2005 02:21:53

I'm confused, you play the books? o_O Do they come with a game?

Domino · Fri 22/04/2005 02:25:24

I was thinking Books on Tape. They could be played.

I used to have alot of books when i was a kid that came with a casette tape, but of course being a kid, they didn't last to long.

pslocum · Fri 22/04/2005 02:34:07

http://www.gamebooks.org/index.php

Some information about game books there, for those who don't know what they are.

Al_Ninio · Fri 22/04/2005 02:40:57

Home of the Underdogs has quite a few gamebooks.

http://www.the-underdogs.org/gamebook.php

stuh505 · Fri 22/04/2005 02:52:44

over the last week, I've dredged through thousands of pages and searched just about every bookstore in the US, france, UK, australia, etc to find good deals. It's difficult because a lot of them go for $100 or $200 each nowadays regardless of condition, which is just too much. I've been lucky enough (or determined?) to find some of those for reasonable prices.

cosmic, yeah...I love those too

and I'm collectiving some of those too. But none of them ever compared to the LW series in my opinion.

Kinoko,

they're like adventure games, but more plot oriented because they're books. it's like you're reading a story, but you get to make decisions about once a page, and your decisions branch off into different stories. there are many ways to die, besides combat...and often a lot of puzzles mixed in their too. over all I find them a lot more enjoyable than the dry adventures of computer games.

you guys should check out projectaon.org, where they have legally published most of the first 20 books where they can be played online or downloaded

Las Naranjas · Fri 22/04/2005 03:30:39

90% of choices lead the death, and the correlation between choice and result is arbitrary at best. They're a nice diversion, but you get the same illogicity of deaths of sierra games. It's easier to restore since you need not save, but you have no fun controlling the character.

stuh505 · Fri 22/04/2005 04:56:25

It is not true thayt 90% of the choices lead to death. It is true that sometimes there are unexpected deaths, but most of the time this is punishment for cocky or dishonorable actions. I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the books, but a lot of people do!!

Kinoko · Fri 22/04/2005 05:02:39

Ohhhhhhhhhh, man, you mean "Choose your own adventure" books ^_^ If you'd have said that phrase, I would have known exactly what you mean. I used to read them by the dozens when I was a kid. Today, I only have one - a Star Trek adventure.

My favourite used to be a Super Mario Bros. book. Awesome-ness.

Nine Toes · Fri 22/04/2005 05:31:29

"Gorga: The Space Monster".Ã,Â Oh yeah.Ã,Â 8)

I know it's a little off of the topic at hand (sorry, Stuh), but I found some funny links concerning those CYOA books:
http://www.jengajam.com/r/cyoa-books
http://www.iamcal.com/games/choose/

Ginny · Fri 22/04/2005 11:34:50

Ooh, I used to love Choose Your Own Adventure. The first one I got I "re-played" several times. It was about a kid on a magic carpet going to some far off land.. I dont remember the name exactly. I still have it somewhere, and 1-2 more.
I really would love to have something to collect the way you collect LW, stuh.

Darth Mandarb · Fri 22/04/2005 19:32:36

Quote from: Mr. Hyde on Fri 22/04/2005 05:31:29"Gorga: The Space Monster".Ã,Â Oh yeah.Ã,Â 8)

HOLY SHIT!!Ã,Â Talk about a blast from the past!Ã,Â I thought I was the only one who would remember Gorga!!

I've been, for years, working (on and off again) on an online version of CYOA.Ã,Â Never really got around to releasing it.Ã,Â I'm planning on a twindesign entertainment section of my website so maybe I'll put them in there ...

I still have ALL the books I had as a kid.Ã,Â They're in boxes in my parent's attic.Ã,Â Someday I intend on retrieving them all for my own house ... when I have a house with enough room.Ã,Â There are tons of them.

FrogMarch · Fri 22/04/2005 20:53:17

I used to have one of those adventure books, it was a Sonic the Hedgehog interactive adventure, as I recall. Oh, how I loved that book.

The only niggle I had was that you could die so easily at some points, which annoyed me because I always went back a few pages and felt like a cheat. Ah, well...

Pelican · Sat 23/04/2005 00:05:21

Oh, I used to love these books! Actually, I still do, just a bit too cheap to buy them anymore. Maybe I should see if I can find any second-hand. I know there's free ones on the net, but its just not the same...