GameClub: Intermission 1 --- Flight from the Dark (Lone Wolf, free)

[SIGSTART]

Update! The finishers are: @czc, @DarthMol, @GregRedd, @SIGSTART, and @Wyvern.

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I have fond memories of Lone Wolf. As a kid I didn’t have a GameBoy or other portable gaming system and I had to share our PC and Famicom (and TV!) with the rest of the family. But I could take my Lone Wolf books with me everywhere.

This is GameClub: Intermission, where we play some short games together and talk about them.

GameClub is like a book club for games. We get together and play a game over a specific period. From the start to the finish. Sometimes there are awards that gets displayed on your profile.

For our first Intermission experiment, I wanted to go ultra old school. We’re also going quite literal on the “bookclub for games” idea: Gamebooks!

Joe Dever, the author of the Lone Wolf gamebooks, decided years ago to allow his books to be published on the Internet and downloaded for free. It’s called Project Aon.

As a result of this, there are now a few digitally augmented ways to read/play Lone Wolf books nowadays. I messed around with Android apps for this while traveling recently, and I thought it would be a fun first foray for Gameclub: Intermission.

The Challenge

So! Your Intermission Challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to finish the first book in the Lone Wolf gamebook series, Flight from the Dark, by Sunday (29 September).

Depending on how fast you read, it should be possible to do this in 1–3 hours.

How to play

Thanks to Dever’s generosity with his community, there are now several digitally augmented ways to enjoy his work. My preferred method currently is an Android app:

play.google.com

Lone Wolf Saga

Lone Wolf Saga The most famous Game book Saga, the world of Lone Wolf, the Kai Master created by Joe Dever, is coming on your Android Phone. The Saga is complete! This application is a complete collection of the saga, starting from the Kai levels of "Flight From the Dark" and "Fire on the Water", up to "The Curse of Naar" and the last levels of the Kai Grand Master. This application makes use of the internet edition of the books, as collected, edited, corrected and re-published at www.projec...

Free

The app is free, and they raise funds for development through donations and in-app purchases that unlock “bookmarks” (save points). When you unlock a bookmark you can use it across all the books, and there are a maximum of 4 bookmarks.

It is completely possible to play the books without bookmarks. If you die, getting back to where you made the wrong decision is usually pretty easy. I played the first two books without bookmarks and then decided to buy one to support the app.

Alternatively, you can play on the Project Aon website directly: https://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Books

There is also a PC app available called Seventh Sense. I haven’t tested it yet, but it looks decent: https://www.projectaon.org/staff/david/index.php

There are hordes of other ways to play… If you’re interested in the ebook versions (including Kindle!), let me know and I’ll post the links here. You can be totally old school and visit your local library and take out the book. If you want to spend money, you can try out the Worldweaver versions of the books for Kindle.

Please feel free to tag anyone you think might enjoy taking part in this challenge!

@GregRedd, @Wyvern, @oltman, @crzwaco, @murfle, @czc

[oltman]

Downloading now!

[PsychoFish]

It’s a shame he never finished the Lone Wolf series.

[SIGSTART]

I see his son has taken up the mantle. They’ve just published the next book in the series — the beginning of the conclusion, apparently.

Dead In The Deep - #30 First Edition

[GregRedd]

I’m liking GC:I already. Challenge accepted. ePub and Mobi files downloaded so I can use the phone or the kindle depending on where I am.

[crzwaco]

Died about 4 times now. 5 dammit

[SIGSTART]

In my experience, the first two books are much harder than the ones that come after.

From book 3 or 4 I didn’t die in combat nearly as much.

[Wyvern]

There is also a PC app available called Seventh Sense. I haven’t tested it yet, but it looks decent: https://www.projectaon.org/staff/david/index.php

Cannot get that to work no matter what, I gave up on that and installed it to myphone

[crzwaco]

Seems like I have to play the running away all the time game. I win battles but then I keep getting into more that I don’t want to and die. Also saving people = bad

[czc]

I died from my wounds. Must stop being so random.

[czc]

How are people getting on?

[SIGSTART]

I didn’t want to post anything about my play-through until y’all have had a chance to have a go. This book is such a firmly entrenched part of my childhood… I didn’t want to accidentally give spoilers that I might not even see as spoilers.

Since there’s one-and-a-bit days left, here’s my playthrough.

I got ridiculous rolls on my Combat Skill and Endurance: max for both. Sadly, I didn’t roll Sword for Weaponskill (this is relevant from Fire on the Water (Book 2) onwards). So, I decided to take Mindblast instead of Weaponskill. Naturally, I rolled a quarterstaff for my starting equipment. RNG giveth, and RNG taketh away.

In my experience, Sixth Sense, Tracking, and Healing are essential starting disciplines. The other two are personal preference, keeping in mind that Animal Kinship is essential (in my opinion) in Book 2.

I’ve never played with Mindblast from Book 1 before. Combined with my completely mental Combat Skill roll (max!), and Healing, I didn’t have to be so concerned about avoiding combat.

Milestones

Here are snapshots of some of the important points in my playthrough, wrapped in summary/spoiler tags.

Crystal Star Pendant

Finding Banedon is a non-negotiable for me. Whatever else I do in Book 1, I must make sure that I meet Banedon and get the Crystal Star Pendant to carry through my adventures.

Vordak

I hate this fight, but for the life of me I can’t avoid it. I just don’t feel like you get enough warning to sneak-attack the Vordak. At least let me use Sixth Sense!

Through the tunnel

There is no way for me to avoid this fight if I play the story the way I like to. Immune to Mindblast, this fight is always so hairy for me that it sometimes prevents me from saving the children later on. This time my Combat Skill was so high that I obliterated the burrowcrawler.

Gourgaz

Usually if I’ve decided to save the children, I don’t have enough Endurance left for this fight. This time, though, I had Mindblast and a max roll, so defending the refugees didn’t cost that much Endurance. By the time I reached the prince, I was almost fully healed.

The Gourgaz was still a tough fight, though. It is immune to Mindblast and has a tonne of Endurance Points. Even with my high Combat Skill roll, fighting the Gourgaz still reduced me to half health!

Finish

I didn’t take screenshots of the final leg of the book. I always go through the Graveyard of the Ancients (the experience is useful in later books, IIRC).

[czc]

Here is mine. I didn’t think of taking screenshots as I played though. And I didn’t have those pictures like you have either.

My character sheet.

It was really interesting. Congrats on the find.

[GregRedd]

Gave it a go “Old School Style” with pencil and paper (because I can’t find an iOS version of your fancy Android app). Good fun, if a little awkward to do while sitting in the car waiting for Kid Redd .

Started with a CS of 16 and EP of 25, which I gather now are both pretty decent.

The Kai Disciples I chose:

• Sixth Sense
• Healing
• Mindshield
• Tracking
• Weaponskill (Sword)

I’m impressed that I managed to survive to meet the King on my first play through. Initially I forgot to use my Healing to restore an EP for every non-combat section, so did almost die early on to a Burrowcrawler:

But once I realized that, backtracked and recalculated, I managed to win that combat with my EP down to 11.

Before that I did meet and help Banedon and got the Crystal Star Pendant. (Am assuming it’ll be useful later?)

Saved the children in the wagon a little later, and took all the avoidance options I could for as long as possible to restore my EP.

Eventually got to face off against the Gourgaz with EP back at 20 and +2 CS for using the Prince’s Sword. Took 5 rounds of combat and my EP down to 4, but I slayed the beast. (Do I get to keep the Prince’s Sword as one of my weapons going forward?)

From there, managed to get to see the King without any more combat - Stealth build FTW!

Great idea this @SIGSTART, was a good way to kill some time. Thank you for introducing me to it. Looking forward to the next.

[DarthMol]

Completed the book on the first run. It helped that my CS was 19 and endurance was 23. I also found a short sword which tied in with my combat skill. Even so, the Gourgaz nearly killed me.

I played through the book using the Android app, it’s really well done. I’m quite excited about working my way through the series. I actually had a few Lone Wolf books when I was younger. They were later ones though, and even the new series that followed the Lone Wolf series.

Another game book I thoroughly enjoyed was Deathtrap Dungeon. It was tough as nails though.

[SIGSTART]

Congratulations @czc, @GregRedd, and @DarthMol!

Everyone else: You still have the whole of today to finish the book. It’s really quick, so please do give it a bash.

If you are stuck and need tips, please ask! The first few books can really be quite difficult.

[crzwaco]

I keep dying hahaha.

Just finished it.

[SIGSTART]

Nice one, @czc

@Wyvern and @oltman: Just reminding you that you still have time!

[Wyvern]

Haha I keep dying, will try again later but I have no luck

[oltman]

Same… This is harder than I thought