Gamebook Friday: 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas is live on Kickstarter!

'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas is now funding on Kickstarter.

It is a rules-lite RPG, designed to be picked up and played with minimal preparation, inspired by the legends and literature of Christmas, as well as the ACE Gamebook 'TWAS - The Krampus Night Before Christmas.

If you're going to Dragonmeet on Saturday, you will be able to have a look at a sample chapter from the RPG, as well as some of the artwork that will appear in the book. And while you're there, you can get your 'TWAS gamebooks signed by the illustrator Tony Hough and myself.

The trade hall will be open from 10:00am, and you will find the ACE Gamebooks stand in the north-west corner, next to Atlantis Miniatures.

Early Bird rewards on offer for 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas

Hopefully it hasn't escaped your attention that 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas launches at midnight on Black Friday, 29th November.

'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas is a rules-lite RPG, designed to be picked up and played with minimal preparation. It is inspired by the legends and literature of Christmas, as well as the ACE Gamebook 'TWAS - The Krampus Night Before Christmas.

The RPG is available in three formats, PDF, softback and hardback.

If you back before Krampusnacht, the 5th December, you will benefit from Early Bird discounts, which will be active for some of the rewards.

You can also pledge to receive print copies of ACE Gamebook that inspired the RPG, if you haven't got it already.

But if you back within the first 24 hours, you will receive a bonus adventure encounter along with a bonus fully playable character, for no extra charge!

The crowdfunding campaign will run until 11:59pm on the Longest Night, 21st December.

Warhammer Wednesday: Journey of the Magi

A review of my new Warhammer 40,000 story, Journey of the Magi, appeared on Track of Words this week. In summary:

"Come for the sorcerous action, stay for the enjoyably bleak sense of satisfaction."

You can read the full review here, and you can buy Inferno! Volume 4, in which the story appears, here.

Thought for the Day

“I love the book. I love the feel of a book in my hands, the compactness of it, the shape, the size. I love the feel of paper. The sound it makes when I turn a page. I love the beauty of print on paper, the patterns, the shapes, the fonts. I am astonished by the versatility and practicality of The Book. It is so simple. It is so fit for its purpose. It may give me mere content, but no e-reader will ever give me that sort of added pleasure.”

~ Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black

Gamebook Friday: 'TWAS the Book Launch and 'TWAS the Roleplaying Game

A week tomorrow, on Saturday 30th November, ACE Gamebooks will be attending Dragonmeet 2019, under the brand's own name for the first time.

I will be there, of course, but so will Tony Hough, my sometime collaborator and the very talented artist behind the illustrations in 'TWAS - The Krampus Night Before Christmas, which is launching at the event.

So come along to Dragonmeet, at the Novotel Hotel in Hammersmith, and get your books signed by both of us. The trade hall will be open from 10:00am.

Talking of 'TWAS, the roleplaying game inspired by the gamebook is coming back to Kickstarter. The campaign will launch on Black Friday, 29th November, and run until the Longest Night, 21st December.

'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas is a rules-lite RPG, designed to be picked up and played with minimal preparation. It is inspired by the legends and literature of Christmas, as well as the ACE Gamebook 'TWAS - The Krampus Night Before Christmas.

The RPG is available in three formats, PDF, softback and hardback.

If you back before Krampusnacht, the 5th December, you will benefit from Early Bird discounts, which will be active for some of the rewards.

You can also pledge to receive print copies of ACE Gamebook that inspired the RPG, if you haven't got it already.

But if you back within the first 24 hours, you will receive a bonus adventure encounter along with a bonus fully playable character, for no extra charge!

So put the date in your diary now, and I'll see you again on Black Friday!

Thought for the Day

"I think the most important thing when writing a novel is to find out who your characters are. Once you start getting to know them, everything else will fall into place and the plot will be determined by the way they act and react."

~ Gareth L Powell, author

Gamebook Friday: NaNoWriMo Progress

Today marks the halfway point for NaNoWriMo and my current work in progress is, appropriately, at around the 26,000 word mark. However, this year I've struggled to make the recommended word count each day, and the only reason I have that many words under my belt is because I wrote 10,000 of them back in June!

And there's another problem. I am already over 100 sections into Dracula - Curse of the Vampire, and I have only covered two of the forty scenes, or locations, on my plan for the adventure. Could this turn out to be my longest ACE Gamebook yet? We shall see...

Don't forget to join the ACE Gamebooks Facebook Group and sign up to my monthly Newsletter, to be kept up to date with developments regarding Dracula - Curse of the Vampire and my other gamebook projects.

Thought for the Day

“There are some temptations that cannot be resisted, some lessons we never learn.”

~ Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black

Gamebook Friday: Dracula - Curse of the Vampire

November 8th is Bram Stoker's birthday, which means he would have been 172 years old today, if he were still alive. Or undead.

I am currently turning the Irishman's classic Gothic horror novel Dracula into an adventure gamebook, which the reader can play as either solicitor Jonathan Harker, his fiancée Mina Murray, or Doctor John Seward. I have taken this approach with other titles in the ACE Gamebooks series, but what makes Dracula - Curse of the Vampire different, is that you will be able to change which character you are playing as, during the course of the adventure. However, you will also be able to tackle the adventure as Count Dracula himself, who has an entirely unique mission to complete.

The book is going to be illustrated by my sometime collaborator Martin McKenna*, and the intention is that I will crowdfund it via Kickstarter during the Spring of 2020. This is the first time I have written such a book before running the crowdfunding campaign, so fingers crossed it does actually fund!

If you would like to be kept up to date with information about the forthcoming Kickstarter, please join the ACE Gamebooks Facebook group, or sign up to my monthly Newsletter, so that you don't miss the launch of the crowdfunding campaign. And you really won't want to miss the launch, as I have some unique rewards planned for those people who back within the first day, or even the first hour.

To help me crack on with the first draft of  Dracula - Curse of the Vampire, I have signed up to NaNoWriMo** again. I had a few issues to begin with*** but I'm back on track now.

* Martin illustrated three of my Fighting Fantasy gamebooks - Curse of the Mummy, Howl of the Werewolf, and Night of the Necromancer - and actually ended up producing covers for five of my books in total. Of course, he also painted the cover for YOU ARE THE HERO - A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks.

** Which my wife thinks sounds like somewhere in Canada.

*** If you're using an existing project you can input the word count at the beginning of November, which I thought the website would then deduct from your NaNoWriMo word count, but it doesn't, so it looks like I'm doing better than I am. I tried to compensate for this by then deducting the original word count myself, but it just got confusing, so what you see on the Dracula - Curse of the Vampire page is the progress on the project to date.

Thought for the Day

“To be haunted is to glimpse a truth that might best be hidden.”

~ James Herbert

NaNoWriMo 2019

I've attempted NaNoWriMo several times in the past - some times more successfully than others - but I'm giving it another go this year. The trouble is, I've been umm-ing and ahh-ing right up until today about what to write.

Maybe I should focus on something I'm re-writing. But then does that count? It's not National Novel Re-Writing Month!

How about my next ACE Gamebook? But I already have 10,000 words of that down.

How about a completely different ACE Gamebook - one that I haven't even announced yet?

My wife thinks I should write a children's book, while I'm almost tempted to write a horror novel without having any kind of plan*.

So, in the end, what have I gone with?

You'll just have to follow my progress on NaNoWriMo to find out...



* This is most definitely not how I normally write.