My daughter is 13 YO, and has been playing soccer competitively since she was in U8. She has been playing in the NPL for a few years now but has had the opportunity to practice with an ECNL team for the whole year. The ECNL team is part of a much larger club, and quite frankly she nor I can stand them. They have more kids than they can realistically pay attention to and have pretty much strung her along for the last year, despite extremely positive feedback. Her coach in the NPL is absolutely wonderful, he runs the club and really has advocated for her. The bottom line is that she doesn’t want to go to the ECNL team should she get an offer now. I don’t want her development to stall but I just can’t stand the club. They are so vague and constantly telling us that decisions are “political” which in my opinion is crazy. At the end of the day her happiness is more important but she does want to play college soccer. It’s worth noting that her NPL team have been undefeated and #1 in their division for the entire season and they play ECNL teams at their tournaments. The ECNL team she’s been practicing with is only marginally better than her team and are doing just Ok in their division. Is it setting her back to say thanks but no thanks to the ECNL club?
u/30booksaday
I’ve been playing a lot of game books lately, and I know how often I look for reviews, so I figured I’d post them incase anyone had a need! This is spoiler free.
This is part of the Arkham Horror Investigates Gamebook series written by Jonathan Green of Fighting Fantasy fame.
Rating: 3.75/5
Mechanics: the mechanics were simple. You had an option to choose from a few characters and could print out their sheet if you played using kindle or ebook, otherwise the sheets were in the back of the book. They explain any combat and how to roll during the combat and it wasn’t too challenging.
Story: A wonderfully written atmospheric story. There’s also multiple endings in case you want to play more than once. This was probably my favorite part of it!
Gameplay: the puzzles were absolutely fantastic. They were challenging without being impossible. My biggest complaint is that I don’t enjoy dead ends based on bad rolls, so to be honest I didn’t even really roll for anything. It became apparent pretty quickly that a failed roll was an auto dead end. This strongly detracted from the “game” portion because in order for me to care about gaining or losing resources or clues, I also have to care about rolling for things. There was some light mapping and it does require detailed notes - I really enjoy that though!
Time spent: 4-5 hours. I admit that this would have taken MUCH longer, but I’m not going to start over everytime I die. I did start over 3 times and by then I had figured out the general course. If you are strict with dice rolling I could bet this would take twice as long. 5-7 hours is my sweet spot for a novel sized game book so I’m not displeased.
Overall thoughts/TLDR: I really enjoyed this. The story and vibes were 100/10, the puzzles were super fun and I loved that there are many alternate endings. The gameplay and dead ends/insta deaths connected to bad rolls were sort of annoying and I ended up not rolling dice after a while because I was more focused on finding the correct path. I will definitely be picking up the rest of the series.
Curious: are you someone that keeps a finger on the last page and just return to it if you hit a dead end/insta death? Or do you start all over as a strict rule follower?
All in excellent pre owned condition with all pieces undamaged. All only used one to two times. Shipping included. US only or Canada for extra cost
The Old Kings Crown Kickstarter Edition with metal chip - $275
So You’ve Been Cursed Collectors Edition - $40
Septima plus expansion - $120
Mythic Mischief plus Witches expansion - $60
I’m new to Gamebooks, and started with fighting fantasy before moving to destiny quest and I absolutely love both. I recently discovered fabled lands and tried it out but I didn’t like how punishing it was. Now I’m trying vulcanverse which I’m finding frustrating because I’m wandering aimlessly and hardly progressing in the story. I’ve only been playing about an hour. Are open world games just not for me or should I push through? I imagine once i can find a direction it will get more fun, but for now I’m not sure what I’m doing.
Sorry if this isn’t the right place, I’m not sure how active their forum is. I’m playing Book 4 and loving it however I’m confused on multiple enemies. Several of the abilities say “once per combat”. Does that mean I can use that effect once PER ENEMY or is it only once in general? Also it says when you defeat an enemy, your health is restored. Is the group of enemies considered one enemy for the purpose of the rules or do I get to refresh on all abilities and health every time I defeat one? Thanks!
Last week I finished the warlock of firetop mountain. This one was highly rated so I figured I’d give it a go. I didn’t need a walkthrough and was able to figure out the way through after 2 runs — although I confess that my house rule is I start with max stats! I have to say that combat isn’t really my favorite part of these and I prefer the hunting for items and creating a map part more. The map took several pages, pages 3-5 are shown plus the map of the tower and the sewer. Crude but they really helped! I will be playing citadel of chaos next.
I have a recent obsession with fighting fantasy, so I’m devastated that there are so many out of print, and WOW so expensive! Which are your favorite books (in print) but also which ones are so good that they are worth the high price tag as a collector?
I am new to this hobby and have bought A LOT of these game books and similar. Some of them, like the solo 5e ones I can play a few times because they have multiple endings to discover. However it seems like once you finish a game book and “beat” it, I’m not sure there’s a ton of replay value unless you forget everything. But I could be wrong. How many playthroughs do you normally do and then what do you do with your collection?