The new year is certainly well underway so it’s time to catch up on a few recent releases, together with some interesting news regarding new projects and old favourites.
Graphic Novel Adventures
Van Ryder Games has revealed the cover artwork for the upcoming second season of their Graphic Novel Adventures visual gamebooks: Sherlock and Moriarty Associates, Pirates: The Great Chase, Mystery, Sherlock Holmes: The Challenge of Irene Adler, and Pirates: the City of Skulls.
Sherlock and Moriarty Associates is an immediate follow up to Sherlock Holmes: Four Investigations from season one, and Sherlock Holmes: The Challenge of Irene Adler is a 1 or 2 player adventure, where you can step into the shoes of Holmes or Adler, playing solo or challenging another player. Pirates: the City of Skulls picks up from where The Great Chase ends, however, it can be played independently of the first book and offers a very different experience, focusing less on exploration and more on how your choices affect the game.
The Kickstarter campaign for the five Season 2 books is coming in March. You can discover more about the full Graphic Novel Adventures series at the Van Ryder Games website.
Saving Mikey
A chooseable-path adventure game built on real-time text messages from a young boy, Saving Mikey mixes the classic ‘road trip in an apocalyptic world’ genre with the interactive Fighting Fantasy books from the 80s. 9-year-old Mikey Williams is caught up in the epidemic of the supervirus ‘Lyssa’, a dangerous rabies-like virus which has broken out in the State of Dedworth, USA. Trapped and alone in the infected area, you have to help Mikey so that he can survive and reach the safe zone by telling him what to do when he faces different circumstances and threats during his long journey.
Dangerous situations and consequential puzzles require you to figure out the right moves to help Mikey: when and where to hide for protection, when to move on, who to trust and when to interact. Saving Mikey is a game of tense action with various situations typical of a lawless environment where communications channels have collapsed and society is now in frightened chaos. Encounter madmen, friendly people, looters, a crash site, the infected ones, abandoned farmhouses, Growlers, and the evil machete-wielding Maskman, who will silently pursue Mikey.
Features:
- A lengthy story with multiple routes to discover
- ‘Live mode’ allows the player to play as if events are happening in real time (default)
- Notifications from Mikey whenever he has something to say after idle/waiting time
- ‘Fast mode’ allows the player to play without waiting minutes/hours for an answer from Mikey
- Map to check Mikey’s location
- Checkpoint system
The Saving Mikey app is available from the App Store or the Google Play Store.
Lone Wolf
Ben Dever has announced his plans for forthcoming Lone Wolf gamebooks. A Collector’s Edition of book 23, Mydnight’s Hero, is about to go to print and will soon be available.
The King of Siyen has been assassinated. Prince Karvas is the sole heir of this rich and powerful realm but he lives in exile in distant Sheasu – the Isle of Lost Heroes. In his absence, evil Baron Sadanzo and his army of robber knights have staked their claim to the vacant throne.
In Mydnight’s Hero, your quest is to voyage to Sheasu and track down Prince Karvas in the fabled city of Mydnight. Once found you must persuade him to return with you to Siyen without delay. You have only 50 days in which to complete this challenging quest or Siyen will be enslaved by the tyrannical Sadanzo and his brutal followers.
The release of Mydnight’s Hero will also see the launch of Magnamund.com – the official Lone Wolf store for books, prints, maps and games. The English version of Dead In The Deep (book 30) will be available for purchase roughly a month after Mydnight’s Hero, and the aim thereafter is to release two to three Collector’s Editions per year to bridge the gap and complete the Lone Wolf series in this hardback format. Due to complications with Dead In The Deep, the release of book 31 has been delayed until 2020.
Additionally, Ben has noted his desire to begin republishing the entire Lone Wolf series in paperback, with the ultimate goal of having the full saga in print forevermore via Holmgard Press.
Choose Your Own Adventure SPIES
SPIES is a new Choose Your Own Adventure sub-series from Chooseco. Each title stars YOU as a real-life historical spy in an interactive, multiple-ending book with historically accurate events and characters.
Mata Hari
YOU are young Margaretha Zelle, a world-famous dancer from the Netherlands. You have just arrived in Bali with your dance troupe when your best friend Althea goes missing. As a master of tongues and disguises, who better to save her? But if you leave now, you will miss your chance to audition for the performance of a lifetime.
James Armistead Lafayette
The year is 1781. YOU are James Armistead, a brave, literate enslaved person living in Virginia. General Lafayette approaches you with the most critical choice of your life: do you join the Revolutionary Army or find freedom on your own terms? As a spy for the revolution, you might change the course of history. But whose liberty will you really be fighting for?
Both of these SPIES titles are now available for pre-order from Chooseco’s website, and will be published on May 1st.
DestinyQuest IV: The Raiders of Dune Sea
Due to the many issues involved with the release of the fourth DestinyQuest gamebook via the troubled Kickstarter campaign, author Michael J. Ward will now self-publish a softcover version of The Raiders of Dune Sea. This new edition will be published by Matador in late March and will feature colour quest maps inside the book. Backers of the Kickstarter will be notified of its availability and can then purchase one copy at a heavily discounted price, before it goes on sale for the full retail amount.
You can find out more about The Raiders of Dune Sea and the complete series at the DestinyQuest website.
The Solo Investigator’s Handbook
5e Solo Gamebooks has released The Solo Investigator’s Handbook, a 95-page supplement for Call of Cthulhu RPG – the tabletop roleplaying game full of secrets, mysteries and horror based on the writings of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Containing a full system for generating on-the-fly, immersive solo adventures without the need for a Keeper, this supplement offers quest hooks, rumours and clues, random events, tables and stat blocks, a unique question/answer mechanic to guide your quest, and examples of solo gameplay.
7th Edition Quick-Start Rules for the Call of Cthulhu RPG are available as a FREE pdf download from the Chaosium Inc. website, containing all that you need to start playing CoC straight away. The Solo Investigator’s Handbook is available from DriveThruRPG, where you can also find other CoC supplements, solo campaigns and rulebooks. Find out more about the diverse range of 5e Solo Gamebooks here at GBN.
The Ballad Singer
The final version of Curtel Games’ interactive RPG/graphic adventure The Ballad Singer is now available via Steam and itch.io (DRM-free version). You can also download a FREE windows-only demo from either site.
Visit Curtel Games’ The Ballad Singer website to learn more about the game.
You wrote:
“…Due to the many issues involved with the release of the fourth DestinyQuest gamebook via the troubled Kickstarter campaign, author Michael J. Ward will now self-publish a softcover version of The Raiders of Dune Sea….”
I think this passage should be modified, because MEGARA is responsible for the trouble on Kickstarter. Someone with no information could think otherwise!
I understand what you’re saying, however, my preference was to promote Michael’s upcoming new version, not to make specific mention of Megara. This ongoing saga has been very unpleasant and has certainly damaged our community of gamebook creators. Those who backed the KS will know all about the issues – I doubt those unaware will care, particularly as Megara are seemingly about to go out of business.