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Random Solo Adventure: Fantasy Dungeon - Solo Gamebook
 
$3.95
Average Rating:3.3 / 5
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Random Solo Adventure: Fantasy Dungeon - Solo Gamebook
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Random Solo Adventure: Fantasy Dungeon - Solo Gamebook
Publisher: PenguinComics
by TAN U. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/20/2021 00:26:26

I die all the times .It's up to your bad roll.It should have spicail options for helping more than this. But it's fun for me and my boy cause we cheated it.Now I try another your books.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Hi TAN U. Thank you for your review! I do admit that Fantasy Dungeon is a very difficult book. It is made tough on purpose: so you can reply it many times. The other books, especially Post Apocalypse, is a bit easier and have other types of choices. Maybe that suits you better? It is sci-fi though, and not fantasy.
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Random Solo Adventure: Fantasy Dungeon - Solo Gamebook
Publisher: PenguinComics
by Maciej K. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/06/2019 14:34:45

It is entertaining the first time, but then you realize that there is no choice whatsoever, and not even an illusion of choice. Essentially you roll a die a million times and then you die. I understand the author's intention, but it just doesn't work. Here are the issues:

  • The mechanics are extremely simplistic, but in a bad way. You have just one stat - HP - and it doubles as your combat skill (you roll under or equal HP to hit). So as soon as you start losing HP, you get worse - you hit less often, so you get hit more often. If you get hit, you are pretty much dead.
  • Starting out is extremely harsh. You start with just 2 HP with a weak weapon, and right away you can encounter an enemy that can one-shot you, because he deals 2 damage with each hit. You can also randomly step into traps, and there is no option to spot them or avoid them or anything - you just take damage. If you are lucky, they won't one shot you.
  • And you don't have any control over what happens. You just roll, roll, roll, and die. No, choosing to go left or right to roll on essentially the same random table is not a choice, not even close. In, say, the microgamebooks from the Chronicles of Arborell series, you feel in control. You can learn traps and monsters and learn to avoid them, and on subsequent plays you can learn to build your character better to overcome the challenges. In a game like Deathmaze, you don't really have any control, but the gameplay is so fast and fluid that you don't have time to think about that, and the game gives you a great sense of exploration. Here - no control. Your character is always the same, and you just roll ad nauseam. You could roll a d1000 and on a 000 you'd win, otherwise you'd die. And it'd be about the same amount of fun.

I really wanted to like it, and the presentation and artwork are really nice, but it just feels random, boring and pointless. Sorry for being so negative, but I'm severely disappointed.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Hi Maciej, Thanks for your lengthy review and input. I really appreciate it. Fantasy Dungeon is my first gamebook, and many players apparently like it a lot - but it is not for everyone. It is the first in the series of Random Solo Adventures, and as such it has flaws and problems. In the second and third book of the series, many of these "problems" are fixed. In Jungle Quest, for instance, there is more choice and less predictability. In Post Apocalypse, there is even more choice and also other skills. Each book is expanded upon the simple rule system from Fantasy Dungeon, but carried out in different ways. Fantasy Dungeon was purposely written as a gamebook with a very simple rulesystem, using only one "skill" and one D6 dice. It's supposed to be a very fast/quick gamebook, and to be used as a hack-and-slash adventure for those who want something to play, but doesn't have the time to dig into something more complex. I fully understand that this concept might be over simplistic, especially if one is looking for more choice. The concept also incorporates much more randomness than gamebooks usually do (hence the name Random Solo Adventure for this whole series of books). As many of my gamebooks, they are very difficult to play through the first time. There might be more instant death episodes in these books (and even more in the free/pay-what-you-want-books) than in other gamebooks. I understand that this is not for all, but I wanted to cover a different path than other authors have done, and make the books a bit more "hardcore". Either way - I appreciate your notes and criticism and will bring this with me into future books. If you have more ideas, criticism and notes on this (and other products I've published), then please email me (the email is available when loggin in).
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Random Solo Adventure: Fantasy Dungeon - Solo Gamebook
Publisher: PenguinComics
by Todd S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/17/2017 09:28:55

Bad spelling errors - ex. "loose" instead of 'lose' - and possessives where plurals are needed.

Really needs to be carefully edited for these issues



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Random Solo Adventure: Fantasy Dungeon - Solo Gamebook
Publisher: PenguinComics
by A customer [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/27/2016 18:02:30

I found this game to be mildly entertaining but it got old pretty quick.

  • Pros:
    • The artwork I thought fit the genre very well
    • The author is descriptive
    • It can be played with just a d6 (I think that is nice when you don't have your polys with you)
  • Cons:
    • It gets monotonous
    • You die very quickly quite often
    • It seems like you are playing the same adventure over and over

It may be just how the dice were rolling and I have not played this a lot so your experience may be different. I do not regret buying this as it was not expensive. I just think that overall it could be a lot better but it could be a lot worse.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Thanks for your review! Happy to hear that you thought Fantasy Dungeon was worth the money. The Random Solo Adventures ARE made to be a bit hard, and the random-concept does make part of the game repetitive. Hopefully though, the randomness also makes it easier and more fun to replay the gamebook. Hopefully, you are more lucky with the dice next time. ;) Maybe you will like our other gamebooks better. Jungle Quest is already published here, as well as several free adventures, and soon we are releasing Post Apocalypse. This book will be less random and less repetitive and with high quality artwork from a select illustrator! Weighing in on 200+ pages, it is also the largest gamebook we've ever made! Over 50+ full page illustrations. Be sure to follow on Twitter (Pingo) and PM us there (or email us) with any constructive ideas you have for our future gamebooks! We really enjoy to hear what worked, and didn't work, in our previous books. Again thanks for your purchase and review!
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Displaying 1 to 4 (of 4 reviews) Result Pages:  1 
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