In 1982, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone popularised the gamebook genre in the United Kingdom with the first Fighting Fantasy adventure, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain -- a book authored by having Livingstone literally write the first half and Jackson the second. Jackson was responsible for the game's final puzzle, and strives to protect the book against cheaters by devising a puzzle where you have to use the numbers associated with certain items to reach sections the book does not let you access normally.
Jackson ran with this tactic by going on to use it in just about every other FF book he wrote; Livingstone also used it on occasion, but in a more... straightforward (for want of a better word) manner. The idea was also used by outside writers (who were employed when it became apparent demand for the series was far outstripping the rate at which Jackson and Livingstone could hope to write by themselves), and by the end of the series the concept was being used in extremely complex ways, in almost impossibly difficult books which were no longer really being aimed at children.
But there's a missing link in my writing on the subject, and therein lies the following question: What is the first book in the range from an outside author to utilise this concept?
It might have been intended to be this puzzle from Space Assassin, the twelfth book in the series overall and the third from a freelancer -- Andrew Chapman, who was inspired to begin writing a gamebook in his early twenties after reading Firetop Mountain. However, Chapman lived in Australia, which was obviously more of a barrier than it would be today, and when the book was published in 1985 he discovered the puzzle as printed bore no resemblance whatsoever to the one in his manuscript. This might explain why the one clue you can get as to how to cross -- a man telling you "take the middle, always the middle" -- will get you killed if you follow it, but on the other hand, there are two other clues you can get in the book which can prove fatal if you take their advice. This puzzle is also not even mandatory, but one of two possible branches, and it can still be bypassed by trial and error even if it is unclear what the author's original intention was.
The first definite example, then, is another sci-fi title -- #18 Rebel Planet by Robin Waterfield, making the first of his four incursions into the world of Fighting Fantasy (but his only sci-fi one -- all the others were more traditional swords-and-sorcery affairs). The Search and Research of Space Organisation has learnt that the Arcadians, a race which enslaved humanity many years ago, are entirely reliant on a powerful super-computer, which you have been sent to destroy. The building on Arcadion where the computer is housed is protected by three three-digit codes, all of which are in binary and are scattered throughout the adventure; one hidden as an acrostic in a message, one in an illustration and one directly given to you by another character. The book then gives you instructions on how to convert the complete nine-digit code into decimal:
Waterfield's next book, however, is where things really come together.
As it happens, I have written about #23 Masks of Mayhem before, and alluded to the secret area Waterfield hides in it, but didn't explain how it works.
First of all, you can retrieve from a hermit a sceptre on which is inscribed the legend "There should be one just ruler." Next, whilst in a mine you can find "a Snattacat's tusk, which has been engraved with delicate, interweaving patterns" as part of a large pile of trinkets hoarded by a monster, of which you can take any three. Because of the circumstances in which you find them, the book does not allow you to more closely inspect any items you find in the mine until you exit it, which is perhaps a clever way of divorcing the item from its associated numbers; once you examine it, you find the tusk has "eleven tiny dragons intricately engraved on it", and screws open to reveal "eight identical seeds, which look like apple pips".
Earlier books in the series just had items with numbers written on them for no real reason; Waterfield is being more subtle. However, he rather breaks with this when you find an orb some time later, which has inscribed on it "Twenty-one is the number of the ruler's sway." Later still, you meet the Juja, a retired wizard who advises you to seek out Vashti the Ageless in Maiden's Vale, and makes note of page 208 of a book he has when advising you on how to get out again; you can also find other clues throughout the adventure about the importance of a sceptre and an orb.
When you get to Maiden's Vale, you are prompted "If you can guess what you are supposed to do here, add together the numbers of the items involved and turn to the paragraph with that number" -- a helpful hint which later books in the series might have foregone entirely! In any event, adding together the number on the sceptre and the number of the orb allows you to enter Vashti's realm, but you then need the page number from the Juja, and the apple seeds (multiply the two numbers associated with them together) so that you can get back out of the secret area; if you are lacking either you are stranded there until another adventurer manages to enter, which Vashti reckons might happen in a few centuries' time. There would be more difficult examples in later books, but this secret area pretty much sets the template for similar anti-cheating traps, particularly in having items with numbers associated with them but more subtly than just having that number written on them for no readily apparent reason, and it being possible to find out how to enter the secret area but get stranded there for all eternity because you don't know how to get out again is another enjoyable piece of minor trolling, especially the way Waterfield puts it:
"Oh dear," says Vashti calmly. "That means you're stuck here with me. Never mind: maybe another traveller will enter this domain, in another few centuries." Until then, your adventure is over.
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