Playbook
As a game book (English: game book ) is a printed work in which the reader can directly influence the action of the event. These interactive books were particularly popular in the 1980s.
concept
The entire book is divided into sections. The reader begins with Section 1 and, after reading it, is presented with a choice. Depending on his decision, the program continues with a different section, which then again gives the reader a choice. This continues until one reaches either the end, the resolution, the main end of the book (usually the last numbered section), or a section that announces the failure or death of the player.
example
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1
You're locked in the control room. How do you get out of here? There is a large red button in front of you, and there is a sign on the wall above it. A heavy steel door is let into the north wall. You can
2 Sections like this do not exist in real game books because it is not accessible at all. It is only included here to warn the reader that he is reading this particular example “wrongly”. After section 1 , you do not continue reading directly from section 2 , but from the section you chose in section 1 . 3 When you press the button, the entire building explodes and buries you under its rubble. Start over. 4th After you have entered the code, a green lamp lights up and the steel door opens with a soft hiss. Do you want
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5
The door is locked, but you discover a small input field next to the door, on the display of which “Enter code” lights up. If you know the code, read on from section number 4 . If you don't know him, you have to read on from 1 . 6th The sign reads: “This is a small example to illustrate the typical structure of a game book. It was specially written for the German language Wikipedia. The code for the steel door is '4'. Have fun and don't press the red button! ” . With this knowledge richer, you wonder what you could do next.
7th Congratulations, you did it and you are free! The End |
history
Interactive forms of literature emerged in the 1960s. In 1961 the French writer Marc Saporta published Composition No. 1 , a 150-page novel that could be read in any order. Julio Cortázar's 1963 novel Rayuela gave two different reading orders for its 155 chapters. The first game book in the sense of today's definition was Un conte à votre façon , a literary experiment by the French writer Raymond Queneau , who, as a member of the Oulipo group of authors, had been experimenting with ways of generating texts since 1960 .
In the US, published Edward Packard 1976 the play book Sugarcane Iceland (German: Island of the 1000 threats ) and subsequently developed the popular game book series Choose Your Own Adventure , whose name serves as a synonym for the genre. Independently of this, Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson (co-founders of Games Workshop ) were looking for a way to make the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons accessible to a wider audience. Dungeons & Dragons has a very complex set of rules and requires a whole group of players. As a result of their efforts, Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson published the first interactive book with a combat system in 1981: "The Warlock of Firetop Mountain" (German title: " Der Hexenmeister vom Flammenden Berg "). Due to the great success, a whole series called Fighting Fantasy was created . The books have sold over 15 million copies worldwide.
In this series, Jackson and Livingstone have supplemented the game book principle with a combat system based on Dungeons & Dragons . The player has different values that are determined at the beginning of the game with dice. Usually these are dexterity , strength, and luck . If the reader encounters an opponent in the book (for example orcs , dragons , witches or similar), dice are used to fight. The player throws alternately for himself and for the enemy. The idea with the numbered sections has been adapted in many places. For example, there were also some Sherlock Holmes and Asterix game books (the latter under the title Alea iacta est as a mixture between comic and book ). Another independent and successful series was Einsamer Wolf , the original series of which has 28 titles in English and 12 in Germany. An offshoot of this series, which also takes place on the fantasy continent "Magnamund", has four titles under the name Silberstern .
For the German role-playing game system Das Schwarze Auge , in addition to the group adventures for the game in the true sense of the word, around 40 solo adventures have been published so far, which work on the principle of play books. Since the late 1990s, DSA has rarely released solo adventures. The 16 previously published DSA mobile games are structured in a similar way to solo adventures.
Computer games
Conversions of the Playbook principle as a computer game are the genre Interactive Fiction attributed. The first computer game book was Kadath , which was published in 1979 by a hobby programmer for the Altair 8800 home computer and gradually commercialized for other home computers. In the 2000s, authoring systems for game books such as Twine , ChoiceScript or Ren'Py emerged , which allowed authors with a literary background but no programming knowledge to create sophisticated and complex game books. The simple principle of the game ensured that the genre was relatively popular on mobile devices .
Interactive audio books
Interactive audio books initially existed as CDs, where different titles had to be selected depending on the decision. In 2010 the Magdeburg company Audiogent published interactive audio books for mobile devices with the iOS operating system . Starting in 2016, interactive audio books were also produced for voice-controlled intelligent personal assistants . The Alexa audio book The Magic Door by a former Amazon employee was one of the first products of this kind. In Germany, the Alexa game book Der Eiserne Falke was published in 2018 , which took first place in the Amazon Alexa Games Skill Challenge in the same year.
Works
Fighting Fantasy
The books have been published in German by both Thienemann and Goldmann publishers.
bibliography
In the Fighting Fantasy series (Fantasy Adventure Play Books) are published (in German) (in chronological order):
- Volume 1: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain ( Warlock of Firetop Mountain )
- Volume 2: The Wizard's Citadel ( Citadel of Chaos )
- Volume 3: The Forest of Darkness ( The Forest of Doom )
- Volume 4: The Universe of Infinity ( Starship Traveler )
- Volume 5: The City of Thieves ( City of Thieves )
- Volume 6: The Labyrinth of Death ( Deathtrap Dungeon )
- Volume 7: The Island of the Lizard King ( Iceland of the Lizard King )
- Volume 8: The bottom of the scorpions ( Scorpion Swamp )
- Volume 9: The Caves of Snow Witch ( Caverns of the Snow Witch )
- Volume 10: The Hell House ( House of Light )
- Volume 11: The Talisman of Death ( Talisman of Death )
- Volume 12: The Temple of Secrets ( Temple of Terror )
- Volume 13: The Stars of Smugglers ( The Rings of Kether )
- Volume 14: The Duel of the Pirates ( Seas of Blood )
- Volume 15: The demons of the depth ( Demons of the Deep )
- Volume 16: The Sword of the Samurai ( Sword of the Samurai )
- Volume 17: The competition of gladiators ( Trial of Champions )
- Volume 18: The masks of Mayhem ( Masks of Mayhem )
- Analand Saga 1: The Adventurer from Analand ( Sorcery Epic I: The Shamutanti Hills )
- Analand Saga 2: The Traps of Kharé ( Sorcery Epic II: Khare - Cityport of Traps )
- Analand Saga 3: The Seven Serpents ( Sorcery Epic III: The seven Serpents )
- Analand Saga 4: The Crown of Kings ( Sorcery Epic IV: Crown of Kings )
There were more than 40 other books in the original English edition. The most successful were the anniversary edition (50th book) Return to Firetop Mountain and the horror playbook Creature of Havoc , of which there is now a new edition. There are also rules and introductory adventures that make Fighting Fantasy playable as a pen & paper role-playing game for group adventures . Since June 2002 the Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks have been reissued in England by Wizard Books. At the moment (as of April 2006) 24 books are available again, and two more have been announced. April 2005 came out with "Eye of the Dragon" a completely new FF playbook by Ian Livingstone. A publication of the volume 60 "Bloodbones", announced at the time by Puffin Verlag but never published, has now also been tackled by Wizard Books.
Adaptations
In April 2010, work on a film based on House of Hell ( The Hell House announced), to take notes on the script to Steve Jackson. An interactive version of the film will be released on Blu-Ray and on the Internet.
D&D - endless adventures
From 1984 to 1985, Bertelsmann published the German edition of the 1983 TSR series of adventure game books from the world of Dungeons & Dragons. The books are kept very simple, as you don't need a protocol to write things down and there are no direct battles. The following books have appeared in the series:
- 01 The battle of the dwarves
- 02 The vengeance of the rainbow dragons
- 03 The pillars of pentegar
- 04 The mountain of mirrors
- 05 The Curse of the Winter Wizard
- 06 The castle of the black dragon
- 07 The castle of madness
- 08 The monster's lair
- 09 The singing amulet
- 10 The world of Greyhawk
The big ... game book
In Bastion-Luebbe Verlag a series of four game books was published in 1985 and 1990:
- The great Nibelungen playbook
- The great Troy playbook
- The great King Arthur playbook
- The great Chicago playbook
Written by the German author Robert Wolf, they use a very differentiated character and combat system and, with 700–750 sections, are among the more extensive works.
Lonely wolf
The Lone Wolf is the last surviving member of the order of the Kai Lords , who always fought for the good in the fictional land of Sommerlund . As the last of its kind, the Lone Wolf has to master difficult missions in order to free his country from the threat of his archenemies , the Black Lords , a diabolical caste of powerful demons. Sommerlund is part of the Magnamund game world , which is composed of various landscapes: In addition to the Western European-looking Sommerlund, there is the steppe region of the Wild Lands , the royal city of Hammerdal , which is surrounded by mountains within the fertile crown land of Durenor , the south-summer Lundian provinces of Ruanon with the deep, threatened by conspirators Maakenschlucht , the ice world of Kolte , the vast desert country Vassagonien with its oriental-style capital Barrakeesh that adventurous Stornlande that Magiokratie of Dessi , the demons city Torgar , the dangerous hell swamp , the jungle around Danarg , hell city Helgedad , headquarters of the Black Lords, inaccessible mountain worlds (Bor massif) and some more. The lone wolf must also travel to worlds beyond time. A separate volume is dedicated to each region, in which the player slips into the role of the lone wolf and has to endure various adventures, overcome powerful opponents who often fight with supernatural powers and have to acquire various magic objects in countries that are often far away in order to Power of demons to break.
The individual volumes build directly on one another and contain descriptions of the individual locations and decision-making situations described in a novel-like manner. The living conditions of peoples and beings are modeled on the Middle Ages, the player is always surrounded by magic and secret dangers. There is also the risk of failure, the player can easily get caught in a fatal ambush and start all over again.
bibliography
In the Einsamer Wolf series by Joe Dever , a total of 12 titles have been published in German by Goldmann Verlag since 1984 (in chronological order):
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In the English original, the series is supplemented by eight books from the Grand Master series and eight other books from the New Order series, plus four books from the "Combat Hero" series, in which, in contrast to usual game books, you can play in pairs play with different characters in the Lone Wolf universe. Furthermore, the "Greystar the Wizard" series by Ian Page and Joe Dever takes place in the world of the lonely wolf, which was published in German under the title "Silberstern der Magier" and comprises four books (in chronological order):
- The witch king
- The forbidden city
- Behind the shadow gate
- War of the Wizard
The series is accompanied by a poster book, a compendium and a comic in the original English version. The series is now being reissued in English by Mongoose Publishing. This new edition was expanded by four volumes by Joe Dever (Volumes 29–32). Since April 2009 the new edition has been published by Mantikore-Verlag in Germany as well. In the meantime (as of October 2012) have appeared there. Since the beginning of 2013, Mantikore-Verlag has published volume 18 of the English edition of Lone Wolf:
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In addition to the solo play books, there are also multiplayer books that enable the Lonely Wolf as a role-play game for a group.
- 01 Lone Wolf Multiplayer Book - Basic Rules
- 02 Lone Wolf Multiplayer Book - The Horrors of the Black Lords
- 03 Lone Wolf Multiplayer Book - The Heroes of Magnamund
- 04 Lone Wolf Multiplayer Book - Sommerlund
- 05 Lone Wolf Multiplayer Book - Bestiary
- 06 Lonely Wolf Multiplayer Book - The Book of Magnakai 03/14
Project Aon
For a long time, the English originals were no longer available in bookstores, making them collector's items sought after by fans of the series. Anyone who wanted to play them had to search for them for a long time and sometimes pay exorbitant prices for them. Towards the end of the 1990s a project was set up to improve this situation. Project Aon aims to make the books in the series available in electronic form. The project is personally supported by Joe Dever and therefore does not violate the author's copyrights. The numerous artists who have immortalized themselves in the various works have been located and have also given their consent to the publication of their work.
By October 2007, the members of the project had electronically processed volumes 1 to 17 of the Lone Wolf series, corrected spelling errors and provided them with the original graphics, and converted them into HTML documents. This makes it possible to play the books on a PC using a browser. A JavaScript-based program called Stats Keeper helps you play the books. In addition to the Greystar the Wizard and Combat Heroes series, The Magnamund Companion , a comic ( The Skull of Agarash ) and the poster book ( The Lone Wolf Poster Painting Book ) have been prepared in electronic form and made available for download.
Mongoose
Mongoose has published some pen & paper role-playing game books in the past few years with the approval of Joe Dever , which are set in the world of Magnamund. In addition, they have reached an agreement with the author about a new edition and expansion of the Lone Wolf series.
Sagaland
The Sagaland book series was first published in Germany by Ravensburger and later reissued by Mantikore-Verlag under the name Legenden von Harkuna .
- Sagaland 1 - Battle for the Kingdom
- Sagaland 2 - City of Gold
- Sagaland 3 - On the Blood Red Sea
- Sagaland 4 - The endless steppe
Choose your own adventure
Another popular variant of the role play book is the "Read Along" variant, which - unlike the examples mentioned above - Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf - does not require any interactive game rules. The reader assumes the role of the main character in the story, but only intervenes in certain key situations in which a decision is required; the player is given the task of weighing up his options and coming to terms with the consequences. The best-known series of this genre in the English-speaking world is Choose Your Own Adventure , which is published by Bantam Books . In German, this role-playing variant has been known since around 2004 through the 1000 dangers series - you decide yourself! of Ravensburger Verlag general distribution; some of them are German translations of various Choose Your Own Adventure titles, others are original works by German authors (especially Fabian Lenk ).
Bibliography (selection)
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Choose your own adventure
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You decide!
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Further works in the Mantikore-Verlag
In the publishing program of the Mantikore-Verlag further game books appeared. In the series The Legends of Harkuna you can travel from book to book and also trade. The series consists of 4 books and is a new edition of the Sagaland series by Ravensburger.
- Legends of Harkuna 1 - The Realm of War
- Legends of Harkuna 2 - The Realm of Gold
- Legends of Harkuna 3 - The Seas of Terror
- Legends of Harkuna 4 - The Realm of Frost
In Adventure World Stories you act out spectacular moments in world history.
- Game book adventure world history 1 - The invasion of the Normans
- Game book adventure World History 2 - The Spanish Armada
Game books by Swen Harder
- Rider of the Black Sun (October 2012) - currently the largest playbook on the market with 1355 sections on 753 pages. In addition to the RPC Jury Award 2013, the fantasy playbook was also awarded the German RPC Award 2014.
- Metal Heroes - and the Fate of Rock (May 2015) - A rock comedy playbook with over 1300 sections. A soundtrack CD is included with this performance book as standard. Awarded the RPC Jury Award 2014 and the German Role Playing Award 2017.
More game books from Mantikore-Verlag
- The fire of the moon - Christian and Florian Sussner
Sherlock Holmes
The “crime adventure play books” of the Sherlock Holmes series make fighting a minor matter and instead concentrate on a system of clues and clues. Through his actions, the player arrives at various clues for solving a criminal case. If these are properly collected and combined, the case is resolved and the game is won. It appeared in German:
- Murder in the Diogenes Club
- The emerald from the Black River
- The end of a blackmailer
- Dr. Watson on charges
- Explosion in the subway
- The Yorkshire Eagle
Game books by Wolfgang Kramer
In 1996 the first of two game books by the well-known board game author Wolfgang Kramer was published . These take up the game book principle and mix it up with a puzzle book. The player can only get to the next number in the book by solving puzzles. In some cases, however, he can also freely choose which path to take. A combat system does not exist, but the player can also run into dead ends or even die. The puzzles contain all known categories - logic puzzles are a focus, but general knowledge is also required. In the first volume you are held captive in a palace and have to penetrate deeper and deeper into the palace by solving puzzles. The goal is to escape from the palace. In the second volume, the plot was placed in a pyramid. Here, too, the aim is to discover the secret of the pyramid by solving various puzzles and finally to get out again. It appeared:
- The palace of riddles
- The puzzles of the pyramid
Game books by Markus Heitz
In April 2005, announced Pegasus Press at a new play book series whose title alternately in the by Markus Heitz imaginary dwarves - and Ulldart playing poker world. The game books are separated by worlds, so that there are two series of game books that use the same set of rules. The author of the first game books was Markus Heitz himself, the later ones were created in collaboration with Nicole Schuhmacher (adventure game book in the Geborgenen Land) and Sonja Rüther (adventure game book in Ulldart).
bibliography
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Adventure game book in the secure land :
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Adventure game book in Ulldart :
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Game books by Jens Schumacher
Jens Schumacher has written two interactive book series so far, from 2006 the science fiction series ALPHA 2 and since 2009 the fantasy series The World of 1000 Adventures . Both are aimed explicitly at younger readers with their easily understandable set of rules and the plot based more on brain teasers than on bloody battles.
bibliography
- Alpha 2
- Odyssey in space . Herder, 2006, ISBN 3-451-70680-6 .
- Attack by the Gmorffs . Herder, 2006, ISBN 3-451-70681-4 .
- Ship of the Damned . Herder, 2006, ISBN 3-451-70682-2 .
- The treasure of Sumura . Herder, 2006, ISBN 3-451-70683-0 .
- The world of 1000 adventures
- The legacy of the wizard . Tailor's book, 2009, ISBN 978-3-505-12533-1 .
- Ghost haunt in the dwarf mine . Tailor's book, 2010, ISBN 978-3-505-12637-6 .
- The treasure of the ogres . Tailor's book, 2010, ISBN 978-3-505-12766-3 .
- Treason of the magic school . Tailor's book, 2011, ISBN 978-3-505-12791-5 .
- Siege of the monsters . Tailor's book, 2011, ISBN 978-3-505-12883-7 .
- The dungeons of horror . Tailor's book, 2012, ISBN 978-3-505-12948-3 .
- Jungle of monsters . Tailor's book, 2012, ISBN 978-3-505-13027-4 .
- The big duel . Tailor's book, 2013, ISBN 978-3-505-13155-4 .
- In the clutches of the sea witch . Manticore, 2014, ISBN 978-3-939-21274-4 .
- The stones of chaos . Manticore, 2019, ISBN 978-3-961-88058-4 .
Schreiber and readers publishing house
The publisher Schreiber & Leser sees itself as a comic publisher and therefore the four-part adventure book series 1987/1988 under the title " The Saga of Brother John " ran alongside as an experiment. The announced 5th book was no longer published by the original publisher. The authors Doug Headline and Jacques Collin describe what happened to King the Lionheart and his husbands on a crusade in the Promised Land. The reader slips into the role of Brother John , an English noble, a man of God, skillful with sword and words.
- Volume: Die fortress Alamuth, 1987, ISBN 3-922548-30-X
- Volume: The Eye of the Sphinx, 1987, ISBN 3-922548-31-8
- Volume: The Mines of Solomon, 1988, ISBN 3-922548-32-6
- Volume: The Secrets of Babylon, 1988, ISBN 3-922548-33-4
Web links
- txtbank.de/spielbuch , directory of German-language game books
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nick Montfort: Twisty Little Passages - An Approach to Interactive Fiction . The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2003, ISBN 0-262-13436-5 , pp. 70 .
- ^ TheGuardian.com: Interactive fiction in the ebook era. Retrieved June 11, 2019 .
- ^ Renga in Blue (weblog): Kadath: So Black as to Be the Color of Space Itself. Retrieved June 11, 2019 .
- ↑ Heureka-Conference.com: Want A 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Story? There's an app for that! Retrieved September 23, 2019 .
- ↑ Amazon.com: The Magic Door Brings Alexa a New World of Interactive Adventure. Retrieved September 23, 2019 .
- ^ "House of Hell - The Movie" . Retrieved July 30, 2010.
- ^ "Steve Jackson's House of Hell To Become An Interactive Movie" . In: Filmjunk . April 29, 2010. Retrieved July 30, 2010.
- ^ Homepage Mantikore-Verlag
- ^ Project Aon
- ↑ http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Statskeeper
- ↑ Mongoose
- ↑ Homepage ( Memento of the original from October 26, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ The winners of the German Role Playing Prize 2014. June 15, 2014, accessed on June 19, 2017 .
- ^ The winners of the German Role Playing Prize 2017. June 11, 2017, accessed on June 19, 2017 .
- ↑ Compare the information in the catalog of the German National Library
