Anime Let's play Single Female Warrior

[papillon]

*frantically searches for the lost number of the previous encounter, turning a page after the other*

*"Ok, that never happened*

Let's keep the nostalgia up, but someone should explain why this was ported and the countless better gamebooks of my youth weren't. Even the shitty AD&D inspired ones are nicer.

Rescue Gavin

Oh hey, I totally missed this thread when it was up. Sorry!

Honestly, this project came about because I discovered this book in a used bookstore, having never heard of it before, and bought it because it was cheap. (I collect a lot of old gamebooks, many of which are much less fun to LP than this is.) It's an unusual entry for an 80s book, compared to most of the ones I have. The protagonist is much more a fixed character and less of a self-insert, there's a romance, and there's overall more talk about feelings (and more narration) than most of the entries I have from the period. Most gamebooks really could not be translated into visual novel format at all, because of choppy sections and lack of characterisation.

Some of the old AD&D books might work, but I suspect getting the license for those would be more expensive than it's actually worth.

So I was curious to see what modern VN readers would think of something like this, and I thought it would be fun to put together a game with fantasy-style art instead of anime-style. And since I knew the author had the rights and it wasn't tied up in a big property, we were able to come to an arrangement.

I put it out under the 'Hanabira' imprint to try and distinguish it from things I've actually written myself. I'd like to be able to publish more games in the future if I can find the right stories, but not from this particular gamebook series. Anyone interested in these can find them either on kindle or old used 80s copies floating around.

If you're looking for other gamebooks that have been released digitally, though in a more traditional gamebook format and not this VN-style adaptation, you should check out Tin Man Games. They've done a bunch for phones and some are also available on PC: http://gamebookadventures.com/gamebooks-on-humble/ The Forest of Doom probably being the most famous of the ones on offer there. They don't have every great gamebook ever written, obviously, but they do keep picking up new titles, so if you have a favorite you're hoping for they're probably the best folks to talk to.

 

[Dayyālu]

So I was curious to see what modern VN readers would think of something like this, and I thought it would be fun to put together a game with fantasy-style art instead of anime-style. And since I knew the author had the rights and it wasn't tied up in a big property, we were able to come to an arrangement.

Was it successful from the economical /public response point of view? Not to be blunt, but the writing is indeed terrible, probably the worst I've ever seen in a gamebook, even considering that probably the series that were translated down there when I was a young 'un were mostly the adequate ones. I'm probably quite far from the target audience for this, but the lack of ... how I can say.... grit from the protagonist makes the plain writing even worse. It's something like the basic mistake of a newb DM: an awesome NPC is doing everything and it's better than your character and this time he's even a freakin' elf to add to the pain. But as an experiment, I understand the reasons behind this thing now.

If you're looking for other gamebooks that have been released digitally, though in a more traditional gamebook format and not this VN-style adaptation, you should check out Tin Man Games. They've done a bunch for phones and some are also available on PC: http://gamebookadventures.com/gamebooks-on-humble/ The Forest of Doom probably being the most famous of the ones on offer there. They don't have every great gamebook ever written, obviously, but they do keep picking up new titles, so if you have a favorite you're hoping for they're probably the best folks to talk to.

Nice to know. The most famous series of gamebooks in mah little country was without doubt Joe Dever's Lone Wolf (they got even a better-than-average game released in recent times), but the man himself gave away the rights for some kind of free distribution (http://www.projectaon.org/).

A Codexian LP of these would be nice, but crazy time consuming (28 books, even if with different protagonists). Maybe someday I'll try with a shorter series.

 

[papillon]

Was it successful from the economical /public response point of view?

Not really. The steam reviews pretty much sum it up: VERY mixed. Some people did have a lot of fun with it and are disappointed that I'm not doing more, but it mostly works for people who get the nostalgia factor and that's not a big market.