Time to continue the ongoing series about broken adventure gamebooks, and this time we’re looking at the second book in the Lone Wolf series, Fire on the Water, originally published in 1984. Actually, to be more specific, we’re looking at one particular section of the book, which contains a headache that fans have given its own rather catchy nickname: the Tunnel to Hammerdal Chokepoint.
Here is the conclusion to section 299 of Fire on the Water as it was originally printed:
If Rhygar is to hold off the Helghast, he
will need a magic weapon as his own sword is of no use against the creatures.
If you wish to give him your Magic Spear, so
that he can defend the tunnel entrance, turn to 102.
If you do not possess a Magic Spear, or do
not wish to give it to Rhygar, turn to 118.
In the
original version, if you give Rhygar the spear then you die, as you need the Magic Spear to win… meaning
that this choice exists only to condemn you to certain death if you do the
noble thing. Note that the book, seemingly by accident, equates never having
the Magic Spear with having it but not giving it to Rhygar!
In later
versions, this was revised to:
If you wish to give him your Magic Spear, so
that he can defend the tunnel entrance, turn to 118.
If you do not possess a Magic Spear, or do
not wish to give it to Rhygar, turn to 102.
This version
means you now have a way out if you give Rhygar the Spear. However, you are now
condemned to death if you never got the Spear at all… which wouldn’t be so problematic
were it not for the fact that the path for getting the Spear is so narrow – whether
you find it or not comes down to a completely random choice between ‘go left’
and ‘go right’ – and requires you to commit a Violation
of Common Sense by repeatedly ignoring warnings to not touch the undead
creature the Spear is currently preventing from trying to kill you. The whole
thing seems to go against the grain of the series’ “Kai Wisdom” – that wise
choices should prevail over random chance.
Project Aon’s
online edition (fully endorsed and licensed by author Joe Dever) fixes it
thusly:
If you wish to give him your Magic Spear so
that he can defend the tunnel entrance, or if you do not possess a Magic Spear,
turn to 118.
If you possess a Magic Spear but do not wish
to give it to Rhygar, turn to 102.
There. In
this version you’re not condemned to death if you give away the Spear or never have it, and the book no longer
equates not having the Spear and choosing not to give it to Rhygar.
There are a
few other errors with the book – in section 289
the book assumes you have the Seal of Hammerdal even if you’ve already lost it,
and in section
327 an item you need to win the game costs 6 Crowns but the original text
does not make provision for what to do if you don’t have enough Crowns. But as
all the Lone Wolf books are freely
and legally available online with an extensive errata I’m reluctant to write
too much about them as I’d just be repeating what the great people at Project
Aon have already done. But there’s a couple of particularly noteworthy things
I’ll cover eventually, and there are of course other gamebook series to cover.
We’ll get back to the GrailQuest next
time…
I just played the Project Aon version of Fire on the Water. The bit you haven't mentioned here is that there's a way around the Helghast even if you don't have the spear (talk to the Noodnics). Was that added in the Aon version?
ReplyDeleteI had no idea about this! I'll look into it.
DeleteJust tried to get my brain around it (I am nothing if not prompt) - I *THINK* that in the original version, you can only meet the Noodnics if you chose "if you do not have a magic spear or do not wish to give it to Rhygar", hence if you did give your spear to Rhygar you can't meet them and are condemned to death.
DeleteIn the first revised version you can only meet the Noodnics if you gave Rhygar the magic spear, so you can't meet them if you never got the magic spear.
In the Project Aon version you can meet the Noodnics if you gave Rhygar the spear OR if you never got the magic spear. This is the "correct" version, because it is the only one that gives you an out if you never got the magic spear... at least, I think that's right!
A slight correction: The item you can buy for 6 gold isn't needed to win the game. It's a way for the game to kill you if you have lost the real vital item.
DeleteIf you refer to the map at the start of the book when confronted with the left/right decision that determines whether or not you have a shot at getting the magic spear, you can see that one turning is on a direct route to your destination, whereas the other is more circuitous and significantly longer. Give the time limit, the more direct road could be considered the more sensible option - and that's the one on which you can get the spear. Therefore, the choice can involve a little bit of reasoning rather than just pure randomness. The other issues with the set-up are still present, though, so it is still a bit broken.
ReplyDelete