The Wizard from Tarnath Tor

Gamebooks have to be considered on three levels, as a game, as a book, and as a gamebook. I only liked them separately, not how they came together. Two stars is for the story. If I evaluate it as a gamebook, I'd give just one.

The plot was all right, featuring a somewhat typical hunt for a lost item in an abandoned locale. The writing is fairly well done, and there are no problems with continuity. The little twist at the end with what happened to the high and mighty of the lost city proved to be something I didnt expect. So the story alone was fine, although I thought the protagonist was poorly introduced and doesn't quite match the personality needed to complete the quest.

As a game, the mechanics are the same as the other Tin Man gamebooks, so no complaints there. The pacing was all right, with fights and random rolls, and ways to avoid fights spread out evenly.

What I didn't like was the gamebook being too highly item-dependent; match the wrong item to the wrong path and you'll lose. So the majority of the restarts was spent figuring out which item goes to which path. And speaking of paths, it's actually pretty linear, but obviously not balanced well. The first path I went through got me into a lot of fights and half a dozen unavoidable “you lose x vitality” situations because I didn't buy the right set of items. Another path ended up with me having two reset-to-full-health, and having almost half a dozen healing potions.

The end result was I couldn't really enjoy the book until I unlocked the cheat mode. Couple this dependency on items and the need to buy everything right from the start means that if you bought the wrong weapon or armour, well, tough luck. The game expects you to be fairly well-armed and well-armoured.