Games

Fighting Fantasy
Shadow of the Giants by Ian Livingstone

Er, does this belong in Games or Books? Because it's a book, but, like, it's a game book... I've gone with Games because, really, it's a game in book form: it requires a pencil (to keep track of your stats, etc) and a pair of dice (though it has a clever alternative if you don't have any to hand), and you jump around as you make decisions rather than progressing in a linear fashion like a novel — I wouldn't be able to cite a chapter or page count for where I'm up to, for example (I suppose I could count how many pages I'd read along the way, but that would be a bit sad — and if the guy who runs this blog thinks that would be sad...)

Anyway, I played for about an hour, and made a right hash of it: I died twice, without feeling like I’d got very far into the narrative (whether I had or not, it's hard to tell with all the flipping back and forth). The first time I made a bad choice so just went back a step, like reloading a save game; the second time, the sum of my poor decisions caused me to lose an (apparently) unavoidable combat. At that point, it only made sense to start over. But I know a bunch of pitfalls to avoid next time! And there will be a next time, because I did enjoy it. I would’ve enjoyed it more if I’d done better at it, but that’s sort of on me, isn’t it?