THE PORT OF PERIL
Ian Livingstone
Reviewed by Mark Lain
In 2017 it
was announced that Scholastic had taken over the publishing rights to the FF
series, an announcement that was met with a mixed reaction from fans. Shortly
after this, previews of the new art that had been commissioned for these
editions met with an even more mixed set of fan reactions, ranging from this
being seen as a progressive step to modernise, thru resigned acceptance, to
utter contempt (the third being the response of the vast majority). As with
Wizard’s two attempts at republishing the series, a new book was released.
Whilst the Scholastic editions have no external numbering system, the books are
numbered on the inside and this book is listed as #6 which sounds fine until
you realise that it was released first along with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (inevitably as #1) and City Of Thieves (as #2). The new book
being in the first tranche makes commercial sense and, as it is the sequel (of
sorts) to City Of Thieves the
simultaneous re-release of that book is also logical but quite why the new book
is officially numbered as six I have no idea given the release schedule of
1,2,6 followed by 3 and 4. There was only a week between them and #5 was
nowhere to be seen at the time but, bizarre numbering in the context of the
release schedule aside, the main point is that, for FF’s 35th
Anniversary, we got another brand new book and it was written by series
co-creator Ian Livingstone. Furthermore, after the FF-in-name-only 30th
Anniversary offering of the generally universally-panned Blood Of The Zombies (although I personally quite liked it, in
spite of its unwinable-ness) it was good to see a return to a straight medieval
three stat-based Allansia-set book in the classic FF style.
Not
only does Port Of Peril use the tried
and tested FF system formula again, but it is also a sequel to one of the series’
best ever efforts, City Of Thieves,
and sees the return of that book’s protagonist Zanbar Bone, now resurrected. However, in a canny move, this is not actually the
gambit of the plot or, at least, not initially. YOU start out as a
down-on-your-luck adventurer who has been roughing it on the streets of Chalice
for the last four days on the off-chance that an opportunity for treasure-hunting
might present itself. Said opportunity soon does present itself in the form of
a dubious treasure map that you pick up after it gets discarded by a drunk who
bought it from a dodgy bloke he met “down the pub” (a bit like we used to do
with VCRs in the mid-‘90s, then). The map suggests that a great treasure (the
Ring of Burning Snakes) is hidden in Skull Crag deep within the Moonstone Hills
(or just “Moonstone Hills” as the book keeps calling them as the definite
article seems to have been scrapped for some reason) and you decide to go off
to find it. You start out with a traditional-style item-grab around Chalice
before heading out across the plains to Moonstone Hills (without the “the”) and
Skull Crag, where you run into the usual IL staple companion (a female ninja
called Hakasan) who convinces you to go and find a certain Gurnard Jaggle who
it is apparent got to Skull Crag before you and might know where the ring now
is. He lives in Darkwood Forest so off you both go there to find him and subsequently
learn, through a fateful encounter on the way, of the imminent return of Zanbar
Bone, news of which means you need to call on Gurnard then hotfoot it to
Yaztromo’s tower on the southern edge of Darkwood to see what stage Zanbar’s
reappearance has reached. Yaztromo is in trouble already and tells you that you
need to go to Port Blacksand to track down Nicodemus (familiar territory for
anyone who has already had to go to PB to track down Nicodemus once before in City Of Thieves), bring him back to
Yaztromo’s tower and all join forces to destroy Zanbar again before he takes
over Allansia. Incidentally, Zanbar has decided that this time he will run his
destruction-fest from Yaztromo’s tower which he is slowly covering in black
stones to enable him to overrun it. Also, Nicodemus is useless without his ring of power (the book’s maguffin of the Ring of Burning Snakes) which ties
the Zanbar half of the plot to the initial treasure hunt part so it all gels
quite nicely and the switch from wealth-seeking to world-saving flows smoothly
and is not as jarring a fundamental plot change as it might sound.
The
sheer amount of ground that you cover in this adventure does give it something
of an epic feel but, as you literally hurtle from one place to the next with
very little real depth being given to anywhere that would otherwise demand
entire books be devoted to them, you do not get the impression that you are
really going anywhere of any great interest and the town-plain-hills-forest-plainagain-differenttown-forestagain
layout seems rather facile in spite of what the map suggests you have
traversed. It does not seem to take very long to get from one part to another
and you could be forgiven for thinking that all this takes place in an area of
just a few square miles, were it not for the map in the front of the book (and
what the seasoned FF player knows anyway) suggesting that this book involves a
trek of quite a distance. The only other FF book that really tries to encompass
such a large playing area within Allansia is #26 Crypt Of The Sorcerer, a book which handles this on a much more
grand scale and feels far more like you are travelling over a great distance.
In other words, Port Of Peril only achieves
superficially what Crypt Of The Sorcerer
does brilliantly in this respect. I am rather cynical about the way this book
darts from place to place as it becomes an endless catalogue of name-checked FF
locations and, at times, also NPCs. Along with the already noted game locations
of Darkwood Forest, Chalice, Moonstone Hills and Port Blacksand, we also see
casual mentions of Firetop Mountain (it is actually possible to briefly go
there and immediately die, incidentally), Fang/Deathtrap Dungeon, Fire Island
(and its Lizard Man mines), Oyster Bay, and Vatos. NPC-wise, if Nicodemus,
Zanbar Bone, and Yaztromo are not already stellar enough for you, Vermithrax
and Mungo both turn up, whilst Bigleg, Throm, and Lord Azzur are also cited by
name, as well as an allusion to a beggar you meet in Chalice probably being the
one-armed jeweller from City Of Thieves.
Oh, and the Darkwood Shapechanger gets a mention too. Phew, that’s a lot of
places and characters to have thrown at you and the verbal assault reads rather
like a Tolkein novel in this respect with its confusing list of people and
places. OK, if you are familiar with FF lore this is easy to deal with and
interconnection is always welcome but this is just too much and a new reader
could easily become overwhelmed with incidental detail that could detract from
the core playing experience. More irritating is an encounter with Bignose
(Bigleg’s cousin) which is basically just an advert for other books in the
series as he specifically suggests the plots of The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain, Deathtrap Dungeon and Eye Of The Dragon as possible ways of
seeking your fortune. This is vulgar product placement and I thought/hoped FF
was above doing something this transparent, but apparently not!
On the
subject of the relationship between Bignose and Bigleg, there are umpteen
family connections between NPCs in this book - be they cousins, spouses, or
siblings - and this aspect begins to read like something akin to a soap opera.
One or two would be fine, but this book does seem to push this to extremes of
coincidence which, tied to the fact that the hitherto unknown (in FF lore)
Gurnard Jaggle seems to be the most famous person in Allansia all of a sudden (given
how many people know about him and his antics), we really are beginning to
labour the credibility of the characters and plot here. Another jarring point
of some NPCs is the convenience of their needs or flexibility in terms of
trading items. In Chalice you can meet someone who very handily is looking for
a birthday present for his bird-appreciating wife (and you just so happen to be
carrying a bird-shaped object at the time) and the willingness of Bignose to
accept just about any old crap in return for his trusty battleaxe (I thought
Dwarves were especially fond of these??) beggars belief! Similarly, the book
seems to be fixated on certain types of object and their recurrence throughout
in various forms can get quite repetitive: brass objects, keys, things in jars,
and your endless knife collecting (for few genuinely useful reasons) can all
get a bit samey. Indeed, the shopping list for this book, in typical IL style,
is massive, with only about a third of all the rubbish you find actually
proving to be of any real use and most of the absolutely essential stuff is
either found at the start or near the end. Most of what you find seems quite
unusual and the illusion of purpose is certainly created, but the
disappointment comes quickly when you realise just how much of it serves no
purpose other than to use up space on your Adventure Sheet (this problem also
existed in Eye Of The Dragon). Oddly
too, when you find objects in jars you are told that you do not have the space
to take them all and are limited to only taking so many which makes sense in
the context of logical encumbrance, but makes zero sense when you see just how
much other junk you seem to be able to carry. Incidentally, there are at least
two incidents where you can lose almost all of your equipment (which may come
as a relief, to be honest!) but this will also mean you will not be able to
finish the book as, as with all IL books, this is as much an item hunt as it is
a kill-the-baddie outing.
Tied into the
typical Livingstone item-hunt approach is linearity. IL’s books are always
ultra-linear with tight true paths to be found by trial and error through
multiple failed attempts and lots of mapping but, at the same time, the number
of routing options available really makes them eminently explorable and
replayable. One notable exception is #7
Island Of The Lizard King which is pretty much just a straight line. This
straight line design is also the case with Port
Of Peril to the point where digression from the intended path is all but
impossible and any attempts at making routing choices will very quickly return
you to a choice you were given a few sections back. In playing terms this is
very obvious and the repeated options to turn to a certain section will give
all but the most uninitiated gamebookers massive clues as to where they should
turn to. In fact, if you do try to do anything other than what the book has
predetermined that you must do, you will either be almost immediately sent back
to the correct path or killed off. No prizes for guessing then that this book
is very much FF by the numbers and the lack of any real descriptive depth along
with the fact that your “choices” aren’t really choices at all as such makes it
all feel very middle-of-the-road for the experienced FF player.
But is this
book actually targeted at an audience of FF stalwarts or is it written as an
introductory book for a new generation of potential gamebookers? I would plump
for the latter given just how many references to other FF books are written
into the text and the relatively dumbed-down prose (burping, farting, and words
like “bloomin’” seem more suited to Roald Dahl than FF but unfortunately are
all here) by comparison with IL’s usually very vivid and descriptive writing
style. In terms of plot there is little to criticise in text terms (some
paragraphs are three pages long!) even if there is a little too much
happenstance involved and characters talk in such a way that they all seem to
be narrators giving away vast amounts of contextual detail but these are definitely
fundamentals of children’s literature and for that reason alone they can be
forgiven. However, FF has never felt the need to do this in the past so is the
series trying to appeal to a younger than usual audience or do kids nowadays
just have shorter attention spans so the entire concept needs to be laid out in
front of them as explicitly as possible? Who knows, but there is no doubt that
this book is written in a more summative fashion than most which can make it
rather hard to connect with in terms of immersing yourself in the proceedings.
What this does mean though is that it partially makes up for this in frenetic
pacing as you dart from one place/incident to another at break-neck speed
(without taking any time to go into too much depth) in a bid to reach the final
pay-off but I think most of us would rather have a bit more meat on the bones
than be changing our surroundings every few pages. If you look at this in the
context of how story-driven material works nowadays though, I can understand
why this is necessary – just compare Doctor
Who stories pre-reboot where a story covered several episodes to the
post-reboot world of “monster of the week” single-episode stories which give
much more of a quick fix. Port Of Peril
in design and textual terms is FF’s response to this need to appeal to the
modern child rather than the 1980s child and there is much to be said for
attracting a new readership, albeit by watering-down and compromising the
series’ core values. Another niggle is that IL sometimes attempts to add
humorous references in his later books (remember the pie-eating contest in Armies Of Death, for example) and you
can find yourself playing “Dungles and Draggles” at one point in Port Blacksand
which is no doubt hilarious if you are of its intended new audience… not that
any kids nowadays will have any idea of what that is meant to be a reference
to!
With the
textual concessions comes a reduced difficulty in playing terms and Port Of Peril is, all things considered,
relatively easy to complete. Most IL books are very difficult (with a couple of
notable exceptions) and can be downright unfair with their combinations of
masses of essential items to find, ultra-hard fights, few chances for healing, and
lots of Luck testing. Yes, PoP still
has you needing to gather loads of items that you will fail without finding,
but other than this, the book is generally very fair on the player. As with the
only fair part of Blood Of The Zombies,
your curiosity in opening and examining things is usually (but not always, just
to add a slight element of tension and make things interesting) rewarded. Luck
tests are mostly found in logical places rather than being arbitrarily
scattered about and some will only be found if you take a path that the book is
obviously trying to talk you out of by repeatedly offering you the section that
you are supposed to be choosing. A few Luck tests will kill you if you fail
them but, again, this is generally due to misadventure rather than the book
hating you. Skill tests are very sparingly used and only come at key critical
pass/fail points such as the final fight with Zanbar so this is acceptable.
There are many moments where you can lose Skill, Stamina or Luck points but
there are just as many opportunities to regain them so this is well-balanced
too, plus Yaztromo will max-out either your Skill or Luck, or add 10 to your
Stamina making you very strong if you happen to have rolled-up a character with
a particular stat weakness. Instant death sections are liberally scattered
about but always come from either doing something stupid or from failing at
important moments so this makes sense as well. There are only a small number of
compulsory tough fights and these again come at key moments, which fits well. Potential
traps and the more lethal areas (especially inside Skull Crag where any wrong
turn means death) are there to scupper you, but advice from NPCs is laid on so
thick that you are unlikely to fall foul of any of them. All this indicates
that, after 35 years of writing gamebooks, IL has finally worked out how to get
the difficulty right without a book either being too easy or almost impossible.
Hurrah!
What FF still
has not got a handle on though is proof-reading and play-testing. On paragraph
1 we are given an impossible Stamina point bonus with another equally unusable
one a few sections later - the Rules mention not exceeding Initial scores so this is either out of the window or there are
errors from the get-go. There are a few typos here and there but nothing more
than in any book and no-one’s names change randomly so that is good to see!
There are, however, several plot inconsistencies and continuity errors that
depend on your having done exactly what the book expects up to those points,
otherwise they won’t make sense, such as: you are told that a jar of eyeballs
has been smashed by you whether you chose to do so or not; you tell Gurnard Jaggle
to call on his brother Jethro whom you might not ever have met or be aware of
the existence of; and, most problematically, the flintlock pistol is involved
in several glaring mistakes including you getting it serviced even though you
might not have it, then allowing you to use it even though you might not have
any black powder (which you are told you DO have) or have had it serviced
meaning that, either way, it should not reasonably work! A less awkward but
just slightly weird problem is that, even without a compass, it seems to be
impossible to get lost in Darkwood Forest as you cannot avoid stumbling on the
correct path eventually.
In spite of
these logic issues, a huge effort has been put into meshing this book with its
predecessor, City Of Thieves, as well
as making sure that there are accurate correlations (via Easter Eggs) with
certain other books. The aforementioned one-armed beggar aside, you can also
collect a lotus flower and some hag’s hair which, whilst purposeless this time
around, do give a feeling of familiarity, and Nicodemus still lives as a
recluse under Singing Bridge in Port Blacksand. Likewise, the episode of seeing
Lord Azzur’s coach pass you by is repeated here. Also, Yaztromo’s tower is
naturally still situated where it was in The
Forest Of Doom, the Hill Men are still wreaking havoc with passers-by on
its edges, and you can even get
picked-off by a Pterodactyl (now more luridly called a Terrordactyl) near
Darkwood, just like the open plain episode in FoD. Indeed, it is just about possible to pinpoint where this book
fits into the FF timeline too. Throm is said to have not been seen since he
entered the Trial Of Champions so this comes after Deathtrap Dungeon, Bigleg has disappeared into Darkwood to find the
still missing dwarven hammer so we are contemporary with The Forest Of Doom, Mungo is still alive (he tries to invite you on
a wild goose chase to Oyster Bay which the book refuses to let you get very far
on if you decide to agree to go, incidentally) and the mines on Fire Island are
still in operation (meaning this is pre-Island
Of The Lizard King), but Zanbar Bone has already been vanquished once so we
are definitely after City Of Thieves.
This all makes the timeline very screwy but we do at least know where we are in
the context of the series’ overall story arc. What does seem a bit odd though
is how to destroy Zanbar this time around. You needed to amass a lot of things
to defeat him in CoT but in PoP there are actually TWO ways to kill
him and both can potentially afford you more than one chance (if you have spare
arrows or lead balls, that is) – either firing arrows or firing a flintlock are
the only ways to despatch him and both will shatter his (now pointier) skull
which seems a rather anti-climactic way to kill an end baddie but, as this is a
fair IL book, you are not being expected to endure a near-unwinnable end fight
for once, especially if you exploit the flintlock continuity snags to your
advantage! OK, immediately before you face Zanbar you do have to contend with
the book’s hardest battle against the Demon called Quag-Shugguth that Zanbar
has brought along from the depths to defend him and, unless you have the Venom
Sword (cost 20GP) you must fight with -4 Skill and have little chance of
winning but the flipside of this is that, should you have this weapon, you will
instead fight with +3 Skill so even the really killer foe can be rendered
reasonable to take on.
Zanbar Bone
himself is handled, in lore terms, very effectively and, other than him being
oddly easier to beat this time, we get some excellent background to how he
became what he now is and also learn that, like another FF key baddie (Zagor)
before him, he is effectively immortal so can we expect more resurrections like
we got with Zagor? Hopefully, yes. Also, because the new and improved Zanbar is
now a Demon he has grown wings and cloven hoofs as well as his iconic horns
having got much longer and he has become a truly awesome enemy which presents
us with two problems: 1) why is he easier to kill this time than he was the
first time we met him when he was a lesser character? 2) why is the image of
him sat on his bier in this book so devoid of awe-inspiring qualities? Iain
McCaig’s original cover and internal illustrations of Zanbar were exactly what
they should be – menacing and terrifying. Scholastic’s new artist (Vlado
Krizan) gives us a dark greyscaled Zanbar whose cloven hoofs are all but
invisible, his wings are just black areas and his tiny skull seems to have had
its horns tacked on afterwards. Furthermore, the entire image is blocky and
looks like mid-90s PlayStation graphics. In summary, he sounds terrifying in
the descriptions but is pathetic-looking in this new picture. Even more
depressing is that this image is not a one-off blip like any book with multiple
plates will surely have, as all of the art in PoP is utterly awful. Take Cartoon Network people, mix them with
stupid-looking cutesy creatures, remove any terror, don’t bother with any
detail at all, obliterate everything by covering it with dark greys to the
point where it all looks like it’s happening in the middle of the night, and
finally put it all into block pixels so it looks like a really bad quality
YouTube video and you’ve pretty much got the idea. Whoever thought this guy’s
art was suitable for FF needs their head examining quite frankly as this is
unquestionably the worst art I have ever seen in a FF book. (Krizan also
created the new art for the other books in Scholastic’s reissue series but
we’ll talk about that in a separate write-up). The cover image (by Robert Ball) is, in context,
a vast improvement over the internals, but it has a childish look to it and is
not in keeping with previous FF cover pictures. Yes, I realise that Scholastic
is aiming these books at a particular audience and that school book clubs are
unlikely to welcome the classic FF cover imagery due to it being a bit too
“real-looking” (and good lol) but the new cover concept just does not have the
right feel to it. FF was always a series of essentially childrens books but
that looked and felt adult. Scholastic has made this book look childish.
Apparently some people have shown the covers (and internals) to their children
and the reaction has been positive so presumably the new approach is having the
desired effect but surely the old art style is a million times better than
this? The covers and internals used to inspire and influence which book I would
choose to get next when I was a child. I’m pretty certain that if I still was a
child I would never have entertained something with art like PoP’s. Along similar lines is the actual
presentation of the book. The small incidental images to break up the sections
are all present and correct but, again, they suffer from the same shoddy
execution as the main plates and the attempt to “age” the pages by adding black
splodges on the edges that are supposed to represent singes just looks like a
printing error and also causes the book to have similar black marks on the page
edges which looks like soiling. Horrible. The paper quality is also awful and
smells chemically to the point where it is quite intoxicating and looks (and
smells) like newspaper. Furthermore, the actually quite nice gold embossing on
the spine and cover text comes off on contact with pretty much anything so the
book quickly begins to look tatty. All things considered, the overall
impression is of a poor quality cheap production where art, printing standards,
paper quality, and general look and feel have all been compromised in the name
of budget-saving. This is pretty typical of Scholastic though as many of their
books are on cheap paper and disintegrate very quickly. In the name of fairness
I have to add here that a Limited Edition hardback version with different (and
far superior) cover art by the ultra-talented Iain McCaig is also available,
the cover of which represents an assemblage of famous FF NPCs (some of whom do
not appear as such in the book) all having a drink in the Black Lobster Tavern.
Unfortunately, the dreadful internal art and fake page-edge aging is still
there though.
One of the
key functions of art in gamebooks is to help us visualise the unknown and, as
with all FFs, this book introduces some new foes as well as a scattering of
familiar pretty standard types that show up in most gamebooks. Amongst the new
offerings are a Sporeball (which is actually quite dangerous), a Hippohog
(disables its prey by farting and knocking them out!), and a group of three
Blue Imps which look to be lifted directly from the Deathtrap Dungeon pc/PlayStation game (which is apt as most of the
art looks like it came from there too, but the way you would have seen it if
you had a black and white tv!) My favourite new foe by far is the Quag-Shuggoth
which is easily this book’s toughest enemy to fight but, for the most part,
much of the new beastiary is a bit lame to be honest and the classic fantasy
creatures definitely carry this one. It is worth mentioning the Plague Witch
though (this book’s nod to the hag in CoT
and also the source of this book’s supply of hag’s hair) who, whilst very weak
stat-wise, will kill you instantly if she wounds you so it is nice to see a
deceptively strong foe to add yet more balance to the proceedings (if this was
an old-school IL book she would smash your sword causing you to fight with -3
Skill, have a Skill herself of 11, and also get an insta-kill if she wounded
you!) Of note as well is your companion for much of the second half of this
book (Hakasan) who, for once, is actually very effective and doesn’t either die
or run away shortly after you find her like most IL companion NPCs tend to do.
She acts as a source of information, a guide to keep you on-track (if you
really need one!), a co-fighter to make battles easier, a motivator, and also
presents a minor crisis for you to contend with when she damages her ankle.
Should you reach paragraph 400 (which you will after just a few attempts) she
also decides she is off to attempt the Trial Of Champions – I wonder if she
ever went through with it – and there is a neat closing sign-off with Yaztromo
using the classic “May your Stamina (blah blah) never fail” spiel which looks
to be a prompt for you to go out and get some more FF books (which can’t be a
bad thing).
Port Of Peril is an OK gamebook that never really
rises above being middling. It is certainly not bad but it is miles away from
the really top-class material that the series has produced at times. It has
lots of plus points, fairness and pace in particular, but its lack of any real
immersiveness or intensity makes it feel a bit flat if you have read/played a
lot of gamebooks. As an intro to the series it works very well but, whilst
there are no direct prerequisites to play, it certainly works better if you are
familiar with City Of Thieves. The
system is back to the original version of FF, which is good to see. Two
currencies are involved (Gold Pieces and Copper Pieces) but transactions are
only ever in gold so I suspect copper is just included to add a bit of variety
and maybe as a nod to the AFF system. All the IL foibles are back (although his
usually excellent prose has been eroded) but they work with you rather than
against you for once and, barring a few potential continuity errors, the whole
thing comes together well and, in summary, you could do a lot worse than giving
this book a go (just don’t look at any of the pictures or your eyes will bleed
lol).
