KICKSTARTERS: What Dreams May Come and The Haunted Tower

There are several gamebook Kickstarters currently running – and Gamebook News is delighted to present you with two outstanding examples: What Dreams May Come and The Haunted Tower.

The Haunted Tower is a choose your own adventure story where you play the role of Quick, the Clockwork Knight. You must rely on your wits, courage, and puzzle-solving ability to make the right decisions that will lead you through this adventure to its ultimate conclusion.

This is a full-color, 144-page, single-volume graphic novel by Thane Benson. But unlike a regular book, this story can be read over and over again with significant variation in the experience. Take care as you ascend the Haunted Tower, for dangers lurk in the shadows. But keep an eye out for clues as well. There are extra games and hidden rooms scattered throughout the tower. Adventure awaits! Are you ready?

Check out The Haunted Tower Kickstarter here.

Savage Realms Gamebooks’ What Dreams May Come is a surrealistic horror gamebook featuring artwork by Kev Crossley (well-known among gamebook readers for his phenomenal illustrations in the ACE Gamebooks Alice’s Nightmare in Wonderland, The Wicked Wizard of Oz, and Neverland – Here Be Monsters!).

As if this isn’t enough to get the gamebook adventurer’s pulse racing, Savage Realms Gamebooks has an impressive pedigree thanks to its 2019 release Labyrinth: The Lich Lord’s Lair and its latest kickstarter Escape from Darkmoor Keep, which is in the process of being shipped to backers. As such, GBN has high hopes for their latest project, which appears to employ some thrilling prose. Here’s a sample of the writing from What Dreams May Come:

You awaken with a start, sweat pouring profusely down your brow, and your heart literally pounding within your chest as you try to catch your breath. You are in a crowded cafe, and seated alone in a corner booth ― the tumultuous din of people laughing and conversing loudly nearly drowning out the clatter of pots and pans coming from the kitchen area.

As your mind desperately struggles to find some correlation between you and your immediate surroundings, you realize everything is a complete blank! It is as if your very mind has been wiped clean! Your every memory ― how you got here, and even your own name, are nothing more than just the foggy blur of some distant and long forgotten dream.

“Besides your usual black coffee, what can I get for you today?” comes a lady’s voice that is strangely familiar, and yet unfamiliar.

Looking up, you are shocked to discover that the waitress has no face! There is no nose that you can see, and in place of eyes and a mouth are three shallow depressions. She, or rather it ― whatever this faceless thing is holding the coffee carafe ― is wearing a name tag that says Alice.

“Uh, just… just the coffee will be fine,” you reply, the fear and apprehension markedly obvious in your voice.

Written in the style of the Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy gamebook series, What Dreams May Come employs mechanics that will be familiar to experienced readers of the genre, yet accessible to the newcomer. Either way, YOU, the reader, will determine the outcome of the story by the choices that you make, but there will be times when your fate depend on the whims of your dice!

This interactive horror mystery is running on Kickstarter until December 2nd 2020, and has several interesting rewards available.

Check out the campaign here.