THE TEMPLE OF THE PHARAOH
Tom Williams
Reviewed by Mark Lain
The news that
Issue 13 (aka Special Horror Issue) of Warlock
magazine would be the last came as an unwelcome surprise to me when I bought it
in 1986. I had only been collecting the magazine since Issue 11 so my new-found
extra gaming outlet was short-lived, plus I just really liked the idea of a
FF-centric magazine that also covered other gamebook systems (in its latter
issues, at least) rather than the more RPG-focussed White Dwarf that frankly never did much for me. It was especially
appropriate then that the short FF adventure included in #13 would be a modern
day-set effort which mixed traditional mummy movie horror tropes with the
modern understanding (as well as early-20th Century superstitions)
of Ancient Egyptian culture.
As with the
only other (at the time) modern-set FF book (#10 House Of Hell) this one starts out with you experiencing a
technical failure in your chosen mode of transport and having no choice but to
explore a death-trap to get back on track. However, in this adventure you are
more complicit and less surprised at what you find as you are an Egyptologist
searching for a legendary lost temple/pyramid complex in the desert, so you
have a decent idea of what to expect within. You have flown around aimlessly
for days trying to find it before you suddenly stumble across it and
immediately crash your plane as you do so (an implied curse, perhaps?)
Naturally, as you were trying to find the site, your initial motive is simply
survival (although why this makes you enter the complex is not entirely clear –
what are you realistically expecting to find in a tomb that could possibly help
you out?), but, as the intro points out, you soon get a more specific quest: to
destroy the undead Pharaoh Terratakamen. There is also an incidental side
mission of acquiring as much valuable plunder as possible to become rich as
well as famous for your exploits. So, there are essentially three reasons to be
doing what you are doing and one could arguably play three times with three
distinct goals should one wish to widen this adventure’s potential horizons a
bit and add re-playability. Yes, the survival concept seems peculiar, but the
hunter-killer and/or treasure-hunting motives are as good a reason as any other
to head into the complex (this is FF, after all), although these do sit a
little awkwardly with your characterisation as you are told from the get-go
that you are not an adventurer, you are an explorer, and you do need to try to
keep this in mind as you go along.
What works
very well in terms of making you feel the concept is the laying-on thick of
prior knowledge that only subject experts would know, which shows that you are
what you are meant to be. In some gamebooks you can feel like you know nothing
at all about something you are supposed to be an expert on, but that is
certainly not the case here, especially in the (appropriately) casual manner that
Egyptian Gods and other major players are presented to you. You can meet Imhotep,
Amon-Ra, Set, Se-Osiris, Isis, Sekhmet (and you know them all by name), plus
three generic animal-headed Gods as well as finding a scarab, and being
familiar with your structural surroundings ie you can identify the courtyard,
throne room, etc within the complex rather than the text just relying on “ugg,
pyramid”-type stereotypical Egyptian imagery. I like the immediate immersion
and it does make you feel like an expert which really helps with playing the
character and it is not long before you are an explorer and are quite
comfortable with not being a great hero of some sort or other.
The explorer
idea, as well as the classically exotic “unexplored world” setting, make this
feel like an especially-graphic Boy’s Own-type
of romp, and the way you can find the journal of a previous victim of the
complex adds hugely to this as this is straight out of Rider Haggard or Indiana Jones, or such like. The journal
gives some handy clues as to how to progress but does not give the entire game
away (although it does tell you how to defeat Terratakamen) and is especially
useful in early playthroughs as you, just like the doomed writer of the
journal, feel your way around the site. Indeed, it quickly becomes apparent
just how doomed previous visitors have been as this adventure is quite
difficult if only for its labyrinthine map and some quite harsh instant deaths
based purely on taking a wrong turn. The final act is especially tough as literally
any false move can kill you. However, it is easy to jump to the wrong
conclusion and think this is a very short adventure as, should you choose a
particular path very early on, you will skip an entire (massive) section
and jump straight to the final act, although you will have no chance as the
essential items for victory can only be found by a very thorough exploration of
a maze that takes up the vast majority of the adventure’s body. The maze itself
is as convoluted as they come in mapping terms and it is probably just as easy
to blunder around as it is to try to draw up an incomprehensible spider’s-web
of a map and try to beat it analytically.
As it stands the actual flow of the adventure involves entering a
gateway, finding an underground passage, negotiating the huge maze, then
avoiding several instadeath traps, before negotiating the inner sanctum’s
lethal catalogue of “pick the right option” checkpoints. This might not sound
very interesting but, curiously enough, this is actually very interesting and I really was quite gripped whilst playing due
in part to the “so this is the modern day – what the hell is going on?” vibe,
as well as the sheer depth of subject knowledge that the author pours into the
text. Clearly Tom Williams knows his Egyptology and, by the end of this
gamebook, so do you! Thankfully, he avoids the very creaky cliché of
bandage-wrapped mummies shuffling around and instead goes for a deity- and
trap-based dungeon design. The initial sections wherein you find a range of
corpses some of which are wearing modern day attire does send quite a shiver
down the spine as you realise that this lost tomb complex is still fully
functional, albeit as if it were 4000 years ago (there are even some Greek
slaves to find at one point, which is a lovely historical detail.)
To add to the
very well-realised game design, your character’s starting inventory makes
perfect sense in context. You start with 3 Provisions (all that there was in
your plane when it crashed) and a fire-axe that you feel compelled to bring
along at the last minute. The usual stats of Skill, Stamina, and Luck are all
you have in terms of building a character, but there is no need for anything
else as you are exactly what you are – a semi-stranded chancer. In classic FF
style, if you lose your fire-axe you fight with a -2 Skill penalty until you
can find a replacement and there is at least one other Skill penalty to suffer
too and this is a very noticeable feature of this adventure as, if you have a
low starting Skill I doubt you have much chance of survival if you take the
combative approach as most battles are with very tough foes: Swarm of Bats Sk
10 St 12; Isis in cobra form Sk 12 St 16; Corpse Sk 4 Stamina INFINITE, plus if
it hits you, you die instantly; Se-Osiris Sk 13 St 12; Set Sk 12 St 15; “Creature”
(a sort of Egyptian abomination that mixes several species into one and is
understandably beyond any naming conventions) Sk 10 St 14; Statues (if you use
the wrong item on them by accident) Sk 14 St 14; and finally Terratakamen
himself who has a whopping Sk 14 St 20 although you only have to try to last
for 3 Attack Rounds before the text decides you are fighting a losing battle
and lets you try something else and/or die trying. We need to temper this
catalogue of super-baddies though as only a small number of these combats are
totally essential to success: play your cards right, avoid certain paths, and
do not be psychotic and you will find that you can plot a less deadly route, at
least in combat terms. There are also a few key Luck tests (involving the
classic idea of pyramids being riddled with traps) that can have fatal results
if failed, but they come late on and the difficulty level overall ramps
logically up as you approach the final showdown, plus several of the battles
are with Gods so you can hardly expect an easy ride really, so the difficulty
in general does suit the flow and the concept.
The shopping
list here is not huge, but certain items are necessary to win (plus some make
the going slightly easier) and the maze section makes finding them all the
harder to add to the challenge. I have to admit that I do not like mazes (I
think they are a paragraph-consuming cop-out) but many Egyptian tomb complexes
are built like mazes so this one is a sensible (if rather frustratingly
repetitive) feature. Only certain parts of it yield anything of use and I’d
hazard that replaying is essential to uncovering the items you need (unless you
are really lucky on the first attempt, of course!)
There is an
intriguing moment late on where you are asked a riddle by Isis, the answer to
which requires some knowledge of Ancient Egypt to get right. Either the writer
knew this was probably going to be beyond many people and intentionally
designed it this way, or the section randomising got cocked-up, but the correct
answer section is on the same page as the riddle section (in fact it’s
practically parallel to it) which does make the 1 in 4 chance of guessing
correctly a bit easier. On the one hand, the challenge element is removed in
this episode but, on the other, how many players will really know enough about
Cleopatra to ever be able to get this riddle right? So I can live with this as
it is, if only to avoid a factually obscure (and completely unrelated to any info
you collect in the adventure), 75% chance of dying, penultimate test.
As is the
norm with Warlock mini-FFs, this one
has its fair share of typos but there seem to be less than usual and this
adventure is generally better proofread than the typical Warlock offering, which is a good thing as it allows us to focus
more on TW’s obvious fondness for his subject matter. Putrefaction and/or
immaculate locations are described in some detail and the feeling of being in
an Egyptian temple-tomb comes across from the outset. The desert flight does
feel sun-baked and the interiors are ominously described. The best descriptions
by far are those of the creature/deity encounters and the smell that lingers
around Set is especially vividly detailed. Likewise, the “Creature” is
explained in enough detail for it to be both horrific but also slightly elusive
in the mind’s eye as it is, essentially, beyond explanation (although the
picture of it kind of covers anything you haven’t already got your head
around!) The text also flows better than the usual Warlock fare as the minefield of dodgy punctuation that normally plagues
these, causing fracturous sentences that jar as you read them, is largely
missing, bar a few rogue capital letters but that’s no crisis and is hardly noticeable.
The art here is by Dave Carson (of Beneath
Nightmare Castle fame) and he does graphic body horror very well, although
the art here is more restrained than in BNC,
but is frightening enough to still give you a chill and really suits the
general feel of this adventure. Unfortunately, the art is very randomly
scattered throughout the text and rarely sits anywhere near its related section
meaning that you sometimes stumble across an image of something that was
described to you several paragraphs ago. On the one hand, it allows our
imaginations to play a bigger part in the visual aspect, but on the other hand,
the art is so well-rendered and suited to the concept that it would be better
if the layout were a bit more sympathetic to both the gamebook and the reader,
but that’s more a criticism of the art/layout department than the adventure
itself.
For a short
subject (only 194 sections) this one does feel very big as you play it and no
paragraphs seem to be wasted, even by including a maze. There is a sense of awe
(both in the player’s mind as the complex unfolds in front of you and in the
writer’s respect for the material) and you do feel that you are delving into
the unknown whilst also trying to discover something hitherto only known to legend,
just as the 1920s/30s explorers would have done. Similarly, your thirst for
wealth and fame is constantly reinforced as you are told the value (in shekels,
appropriately enough) of any treasure you find and you often casually steal
what treasures you find. It would be an interesting alternate mission were you
to play purely to amass as much wealth as possible and this is one of the many
ways this adventure compels you to want to replay it. If there is one oddity in
the game design, it is how to use Provisions – to me, at least, the instructions
are ambiguous as to whether you can only eat when instructed or if you are free
to eat whenever you want to. There are definitely some sections that offer you
the chance to eat, but they do make the proviso (as it were) of if you have any
food left which suggests that you could be free to eat at any stage. Likely as
not, this will not really cause a problem, but it is a little curious if you read
it literally (or try to.)
This is a
really enjoyable and intriguing adventure overall, and the depth of detail,
combined with the desire to achieve any or all of your three aims is enough to
make this work very well. Williams really knows his subject and this comes
across throughout. There is no drop in quality at any stage and even the maze
suits the setting. Warlock’s mini-FFs
were always quite hit-and-miss, but this one is a definite hit (plus it matches the "Special Horror Issue" theme very effectively) and ensures that
Warlock goes out on a high rather than
with the boring whimper that would be FF's other mummy-themed entry (#59 Curse Of The Mummy) which ended
Puffin’s 59-book run by curing us of insomnia. If you have not yet played The Temple Of The Pharaoh, I would
recommend you do as you will not be disappointed and, at the very least, you
will come out of it knowing a bit more about Pharaonic Egypt (whether you want to or not!)
I just finished printing this off from the link you gave me. Yes, I well remember my bitter disappointment when informed of the mag's cancellation. As a subscriber, I still had credit with games workshop so I used it to buy citadel minatures .
ReplyDeletePersonally I think it went downhill after marc Gascoigne took over, they really should have just focused on the fighting fantasy line and maybe that caused sales to drop.
I'd say there was afr more tangible content in the Gascoigen era and it was nice to see other gamebooks eries getting a look in, but I agree in as much as it felt less mass market-aimed in the earlier days and much more focussed on FF alone. Credit where credit's due though, as I discovered Judge Dredd via Warlock's article on it and this would not have happened if the mag hadn't broadened its scope.
DeleteThank for the review, pal!
ReplyDeleteWhen will you review "The Rings of Kether", one of my favourite FF?
I'm really curious to know your thoughts on that GameBook!
Hi. I already did Rings Of Kether. Link is on the right hand menu if you're interested...
DeleteWarlock 13 is the only issue I couldn't find as a teenager (still have all the others in mint condition) and so far I've been unable to locate a copy for sale. I'm now very keen to play this mini adventure after reading your article – above ed mentions a link. Any chance of me being able to download?
ReplyDeleteyes and you should be able to print it out also, here is the link :
ReplyDeletehttp://annarchive.com/warlock.html
Excellent – thank you!
DeleteGreat review. I have only recently gotten into Gamebooks and am still discovering what is available. I will definitely download a copy. I can see I am going to be spending a bit of time rummaging through your blog.
ReplyDeletegoing by the ff twitter page ,it looks as if the fighting fantazine is gearing up for the new issue.
ReplyDeleteapologies Malthus, still trying to find time to venture once more into vortan's lair.....
A contents list has appeared on Titannica so hopefully we'll be seeing the latest 'zine soon.
DeleteA play online version of Venom Of Vortan is in development at the moment on the same site where my Reyner Heydrich sequel can be found
ah yes I saw your article listed ' the magic quest the 59 steps ' ...looking forward to that !
ReplyDeleteand I found that site, would make venom of vortan easier and faster to play.
any sign of the new fantazine ?
ReplyDeletewas that online version of venom of vortan ever completed ?
I'm not sure what the delay is with the latest issue of the fanzine. It was due last month.
DeleteThe online version of Vortan was completed last week and is now live.
it seems the editor is still looking for more FF material before he brings it out.
Deleteits so much faster playing it online although I couldn't bypass the door to vortan's inner sanctum. I'll just have to look harder for those scales....
ReplyDeleteI loved the journal in this one. It gave a great sense of atmosphere and impending doom, like the other competitors in Deathtrap Dungeon sort of thing.
ReplyDelete