The Wounded Falcon - 2 recent reviews

The below two blogs have recently reviewed "The Wounded Falcon". I have provided links to the two articles in question. (Click on the site logos below for the links to the full review.)



"Children will ... have a lot of fun playing this book"



"A unique idea, this book is both a puzzle and interesting story"





Competition Winners

The winners of my recent competition are:

1st Prize (Signed copy of The Wounded Falcon) - Matthew Ender (U.S.A)
2nd Prize (Signed copy of Invitation to a Feast) - Shane Russell (Australia)

Thanks for all who entered and made the competition a great success!

Choices series - Add-on Adventures

Today I am pleased to announce a major development with regards to my gamebook series, "Choices". 

My first book in the series, "The Wounded Falcon" was released on March 17.  I have visited various markets over the past two weeks, attempting to garner interest in the series.  So far, I am quite pleased with the number of sales.

If you have not read earlier entries on my blog (or on the official Choices website) you may not be aware of the primary gamebook mechanic that the Choices series uses: My new "Hidden Choices" system.  I will not explain how it works once again in this entry, but you can read more about how it works in my blog, here or on the Choices website here.

Moving right along, I realised (only recently) that the operation of the "Hidden Choices" mechanic had potential to be used in a manner that I had not originally intended.  Once I discovered this, and worked out the mechanics of how it would operate (which turned out to be quite straightforward) I was quite excited.

The instructions for the system are now complete (and work very well), so I can now announce the introduction of:

CHOICES - ADD-ON ADVENTURES

For those of you who are familiar with computer games, you will be aware that many games include things like "bonus missions" or "expansion packs" to continue the game once you have completed the original game.  These are normally provided via an internet download.  I have created the same system for the Choices series, and ironically, it is the workings of the "Hidden Choices" system that makes these Add-on Adventures work extremely well.

Looking at the first book in the series, "The Wounded Falcon", I am currently writing the first Add-on Adventure for this gamebook.  Once complete, I will be placing the story extension on to my Choices website, for free download (as a Doc/PDF file).  Without going into the mechanics in detail, the reader will use both the original book and the Add-on adventure together, discovering new areas of the story to explore and (here's the great part) using the add-on Adventure module to alter the outcome of scenes in the ORIGINAL story, without me having to re-write the original story!

The Add-on Adventures will be regularly updated in a manner similar to a downloadable patch to a piece of computer software.  The first module: The Wounded Falcon - Add on Adventures - Version 1.0 will be released as soon as it is complete.  Over time, I will add extra scenes to the Add-on Adventure and then re-release it as version 1.1 and so forth.  Therefore, the adventure will become like a Never-Ending Story (while getting bigger and bigger each time).

I envisage that the first release will be (approximately) 25 sections long.  Having the story released in shorter segments will enable me to release them more quickly.  Having an expansion adventure taking me a year to write sort of defeats the purpose, time-wise.  I may as well write another gamebook, instead.

In a sense, this setup has similarities to the Fabled Lands series, for those of you who are familiar with it, however, I am approaching it from a slightly different perspective.

I plan to utilise this system for each book I write in the Choices series, so the second book in the series, The Lost Diary (which I am also currently writing) will have the same idea - Release the major gamebook first, followed by the Add-On Adventures afterwards.

For those of you who have already bought, or eventually buy "The Wounded Falcon", I encourage you to take advantage of these "Add-On Adventures".  They will be free and be downloadable from my Choices website.

Thanks for reading,

Jasan

Win a copy of "The Wounded Falcon"

To celebrate the release of my second gamebook, "The Wounded Falcon", I am holding a competition.

To enter, send an e-mail to me at jumpsterhopper@bigpond.com with the answer to the following question?

Who is the archenemy of The Noble Ranger in my Woodland Forest Chronicles series?

Entries close on March 31, 2011.

There will be two prizes:

- The winner will receive a signed copy of my new gamebook, "The Wounded Falcon".

- The runner-up will receive a signed copy of my first gamebook, "Invitation to a Feast".

My new gamebook mechanic - Hidden Choices - Complete and about to be released

On March 17, this year, my second gamebook, "The Wounded Falcon" will be released into the marketplace - The first in the "Choices" series.  This is a rewrite, expansion and update of a short mini-gamebook I wrote a few years ago.

With this book, I have created a new gamebook mechanic, not used before, called "Hidden Choices". I explain the motivation for this new mechanic, on my "Choices" website.

"One thing that a lot of computer games, particularly adventure games, have had over the written adventure gamebook was the ability to attempt any action (within the accepted range of actions for the game) at any time, not knowing whether the attempted action would be permitted by the game or not. This added significantly to the challenge of puzzle solving.
With gamebooks, all available choices given to the reader are almost always displayed on the page. The reader does not have to think 'outside the square'. At no point is the reader able to think, 'Now I wonder if I could use item X that I collected back at location Y to get by this problem.' and be permitted to act on that thought.
I wanted to increase the level of the gamebook experience by encouraging the reader the option of trying something else and not just be limited to the choices on the page. By engaging the reader this way, I think it significantly increases the value of the gamebook experience."

To read more about the mechanic, and, in particular, the full instructions concerning how the "Hidden Choices" feature works, click here to go to my Choices website, which includes a full extract of the relevant pages in the gamebook instructions.

In keeping with the theme of different gamebook mechanics, to any visitors to this blog, I encourage you to contribute (in the comments section) with what unique gamebook mechanics you have found to be particularly interesting/enjoyable.

Jasan

Membership sections - A change has been made

For those of you that have not noticed, I have made a change to the membership section area of my gamebook websites:

1) There are membership sections for both the "Choices" and "Woodland Forest Chronicles" series.

2) The "secret areas" of the site have been abolished.  I observed much critical feedback on this issue and made a change.  All people, both members and non-members can now see all areas of the site.

Therefore, the option to become a member is purely for the purpose of receiving e-mail updates about what is going on with both the "Choices" and "Woodland Forest Chronicles" series.

Thanks to those who took the time to give their feedback.  It helped to rectify a situation that was causing irritation to many of you.  My apologies for that.

Invitation to a Feast - Reviewed on "Fantasy Book Review"

Another day, another review.

Invitation to a Feast has received another review this week on the UK based website Fantasy Book Review.  It was given the quite high score of 8 out of 10.

For more information, visit my Woodland Forest Chronicles website.

Jasan

P.S.  My apologies to those who have been following my page numbering article.  I have not added to it for some time.  At the moment, I am working hard to complete the next story in the Woodland Forest Chronicles series, "Journey to Mount Darkness" and have had little time to contribute further to my series of gamebook articles.