"The modern master of the gamebook format" (Rob Sanders)... "Can do dark very well" (Jonathan Oliver)... "Green gets mileage out of his monsters" (SFX Magazine)... "It takes a firm editorial hand and a keen understanding of the tone of each piece to make a collection this diverse work, and Green makes it look effortless" (Starburst Magazine)... "A charming blend of camp creatures, humour, and genuine horror" (Set the Tape)
Remember, the USP of this series is that you can play through any adventure as any Investigator.
So, those currently available to download from ArkhamHorror.com are...
The Kingsport Metamorphosis Jacqueline Fine, the Psychic Lucius Galloway, the Dreamer Lola Hayes, the Actress
The Tides of Innsmouth Silas Marsh, the Sailor Kōhaku Narukami, the Folklorist Marion Tavares, the Trawler
The Darkness Over Arkham Agnes Baker, the Waitress Nathaniel Cho, the Boxer Rex Murphy, the Reporter
Bonus Investigators George Barnaby, the Lawyer Stella Clarke, the Letter Carrier Skids O'Toole, the Ex-Con Amanda Sharpe, the Student Sister Mary, the Nun (released to mark the publication of The Kingsport Metamorphosis)
These are the 14 Investigators available to download from ArkhamHorror.com.
However, there are two more Investigators available - Jenny Barnes the Dilettante, and Joe Diamond the Private Investigator - whose character sheets can be found in the graphic novel The Terror at the End of Time.
So, I think you will agree, the Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebooksoffer endless replayability, and any Investigators that might be released in the future will also be compatible with any existing adventure in the series.
Strangely, 2025 will go down in history for me as the Year of Valiant, even though all most of you have heard about the Valiant gamebook appeared in this news item back in September.
I started this year finishing writing the first Valiant gamebook, and have ended the year working on the second. Valiant will be out in March, so look out for more news about that in the New Year.
As of writing, it has received three 5-star reviews on Amazon, one of which has been written in the style of William Shakespeare himself:
"O gentle reader, lend thine ear awhile,
And hark to Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come,
A book most strange, where inked worlds intertwine—
The Avon bard with eldritch horrors wed."
This was the first ACE Gamebook I have self-published, and the first book my son has laid out, and I am very pleased with the result. Two overseas publishers have already signed up to release the book in their territroies, which is very exciting.
Talking of overseas editions of my books, there weren't so many this year - certainly not compared to last year's seven! There was a new edition of La Nuit du Loup-Garou (the French language version of Howl of the Werewolf) and Pax Britannia: Unnatural History was published in Hungary.
Next year, however, I am expecting a glut of overseas editions of my gamebooks.
In terms of events, this year I attended AireCon, Dragonmeet: Call to Adventure, the UK Games Expo, and Dragonmeet. I already have my place booked at UK Games Expo 2026, and next September we will be holding Fighting Fantasy Fest 6 in West London.
My wife turned 50 in 2025 and it was her desire to visit 12 places she had never been to before in 12 months. This resulted in us going overseas five times! The countries we visited were Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Hungary, and Denmark.
Yours Truly in Faraos Cigarer, in Copenhagen, with my Danish FF gamebooks.
All of them were amazing and have provided me with all sorts of material for future stories or games, especially an exhibition at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen about the role of the Sorceress in Viking culture. I even got to see the lengendary Gundestrup Cauldron in the flesh, as it were.
An image of the horned god Cerunnos on the Gundestrup Cauldron.
I have also had some health issues to contend with this year, which I need to get a better handle on in 2026, but throughout it all - the highs and the lows - I continue to have my furry companion by my side.
Conker the Cavapoo is now three!
In the New Year I will continue to work on the second Valiant gamebook, but I also have a new gamebook coming to Kickstarter. So, watch this space.
I can't talk about the gamebook I'm writing at the moment, because it hasn't been announced yet. But I would like to talk about how the creation of it has been, or at least felt like, a new experience, even though I have written over 30 gamebooks already.
An integral part of the adventure is that the vast majority of it is set in one building, with specific things happening at specific times. However, it is also an adventure in which you can visit different rooms within the building in pretty much any order you want. Meanwhile, other characters have their own agendas and may be found in those rooms, but only at certain times.
This has required some very details plans - based on rooms, characters, and events - which have to be continually cross-referenced. And yet, at the same time, writing it has been quite a fluid process. I have dealt with one room, or event, at a time, but when I come to other rooms or events later on, it has often necessitated me going back and making tweaks to what I have already written.
My biggest fear is that when someone reads the book, they will do something in a particular order that then breaks the gameplay. It is certainly going to need some very careful editing, proofreading, and playtesting. However, if I can pull it off, I like to think it will standout as something a bit special.
I have really enjoyed the challenge of writing this adventure, even though it has been to quite a tight deadline, and I certainly could have made things a lot easier for myself if I had written a straightforward, linear adventure, but that's not me.
In case you hadn't noticed, I love gamebooks, and I like seeing how far the genre can be stretched. I see an increasingly number of people writing their own gamebooks, and they are almost always classic, sword-and-sorcery, fantasy adventures, very much in the vein of Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf. Certainly, the more recent gamebooks that get the most attention, seem to be those that do something different with the genre, such as DestinyQuest or Steam Highwayman.
I have been fortunate to write for the FF series myself, but when it comes to my own gamebooks, I want to do something different, which is why I've written a science fiction adventure with giant robots and kaiju and another that quotes great swathes of Shakespeare.
But this latest project has been something else, and you will be able to judge for yourself whether I have succeeded in what I have attempted to do later this year.
In other news, The Tides of Innsmouth, my latest Arkham Horror adventure could do with some more reviews on Amazon, and ones that are actually about the content of the book rather than its appearance. If you've read it, please consider posting a review. Thank you.
Having given The Darkness Over Arkham a sterling 8 out of 10, The Tides of Innsmouth hasn't fared quite so well, having been given a score of 7 out of 10. But that's still very respectable as far as I'm concerned. "This isn’t the first choose-your-own-adventure game book from Aconyte I’ve reviewed. It isn’t even the first one written by Jonathan Green. I enjoy how these books draw you in by being more involved than just “pick a number”. There are, of course, many different paths to choose from, but dice rolls, items acquired, and character attributes affect your options. This turns a simple book into a game and makes it more engaging."
Okay, apologies for the clickbait-y title. What actually happened was, during the livestream of the actual play of The Tides of Innsmouth on Sunday, the stream starting glitching and Jordan Sorcery had to turn off the video feed. I think the problem was actually a combination of the heat and his beleaguered equipment.
Anyway, if you missed the livestream you can watch it again here...
And then on Wednesday night I took part in a live interview with Mathieu and Mark on Rôliste TV. However, rather lasting for the expected hour, it went on for almost two.
You can watch the interview in its entirety here...
Lastly, I was recently interviewed by Paul Semel about The Tides of Innsmouth. You can read the interview, in which I discuss things like my sources of inspiration and how I go about plotting an adventure gamebook, here.
If you've read The Tides of Innsmouth, and you are able to, please post a review of the adventure on Amazon, to help counter the damage done by people complaining about the quality of their print on demand copies (and which are not rip-offs). Thank you.
For those who might be interested, I will be taking part in a couple of livestreams over the next few days.
On Sunday 15th June at 7:00pm, I will be joining Jordan Sorcery for a live playthrough of The Tides of Innsmouth. You can join the chat here to help decide what our Investigator does as they visit the sleepy seaside town of Innsmouth.
And then on Wednesday 18th June at 7:00pm, I will be chatting to Mathiew and Mark on the French YouTube channel Rôliste TV about my work in the gamebook genre. We will be discussing the history of Fighting Fantasy, adapting classics like Dracula, and my recent forays into the world of Arkham Horror.
One of the features of the Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebooks that makes them different from other gamebooks I have written, is that you can play through an adventure as multiple different Investigators; not just the different ones that appear in each book, but as any Investigator from any book, or any other source, including (to date) the Aconyte Books website and the Dark Horse comic The Terror at the End of Time.
But the gaming goodness doesn't end there. You can also play through multiple adventures with the same character and have them gain Experience which can then affect their stats - including their Abilities and Weaknesses - on a permanent basis.
You will find the rules for how to continue the adventure with one Investigator in this way in The Tides of Innsmouth, my latest Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebooks which is out now!
The book actually went on sale for the first time at the UK Games Expo at the weekend, and had sold out by 11:00am on Saturday, which was amazing.
The reviews have also started to come in and they make very satisfying reading for the person who wrote the book.
Just as The Darkness Over Arkham had the profiles of three Investigators included within it - those for Agnes Baker the Waitress, Nathaniel Cho the Boxer, and Rex Murphy the Reporter - there are three new Investiator profiles in The Tides of Innsmouth- Silas Marsh the Sailor, Kōhaku Narukami the Folklorist, and Marion Tavares the Trawler.
However, you can also play the adventure using any of the Investigators from The Darkness Over Arkham, or those that appear on the Aconyte website, or even those that appeared in the Dark Horse comic, The Terror at the End of Time.
I am at the UK Games Expo at the NEC all weekend, from Friday 30th May - Sunday 1st June 2025. You will find me at Stand 2-359 in Hall 2.
This will be the first time you can buy my new Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook The Tides of Innsmouth.
Strange and mysterious sightings send Arkham Investigators to explore the decrepit town of Innsmouth where horrors beneath the sea have risen to consume the world in this new action-adventure gamebook set in the popular world of Arkham Horror.
2025 marks 10 years since the publication of the first ACE Gamebook, Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland, and I will have copies of all eight adventures that are currently in print with me.
The title of this blog post says it all really. I was recently interviewed by Duncan Thomson for the Rand Rollwebsite, a blog about RPG tools, solo gaming and random tables. Click this link to read the interview.
If you follow me on social media, or are a regular reader of this blog, you will already know that I will be attending the UK Games Expo from Friday 30th May - Sunday 1st June 2025. You will find me at Stand 2-359, where you will be able to buy my new Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook The Tides of Innsmouth for the first time.
Strange and mysterious sightings send Arkham Investigators to explore the decrepit town of Innsmouth where horrors beneath the sea have risen to consume the world in this new action-adventure gamebook set in the popular world of Arkham Horror.
Welcome, Investigator! Innsmouth is awash with sightings of a mysterious sunken pirate junk near the treacherous Devil Reef. Those rumors are an irresistible lure, drawing the Investigators of Arkham to the fog-laden Massachusetts town. But the thrill of discovery quickly wanes when you are faced with hostile locals, a missing marine archaeologist, and a family curse with tendrils that haunt your waking days. Solve the riddles, overcome tests, and wish for luck as you navigate the rotten streets of the decrepit town and beyond to save the world as you know it. However… choose wisely, Investigator, for betrayal lurks around every corner and the path you choose might awaken horrors from beneath the sea to sink us all.
See Arkham in a different light as your choices change the story in the all-new Investigators Gamebooks.
My second Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook is now available on NetGalley, if you are a registered reviewer. And it already has one review:
The book hits all the right notes, the smells, the rot, the people, the darkness. This is the third Gamebook I have read by Jonathan Green, and I really enjoy how he sets up both the adventures, and has the writing chops to back it up. Highly recommended both for the tale, and the gameplay.
At the start of the month, the second Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook - The Tides of Innsmouth - was announced. However, in truth, I had already written a second Arkham Horror gamebook, although, admittedly, it was a short one. So, you can think of it as AHIG 1.5, if you like.
Last week, Issue #3 of the Dark Horse comic Arkham Horror: The Terror at the End of Time was released. The back matter of the comic consists of the opening 10 sections of this mini gamebook, which is called The Magpie and the Bat. In it, you take on the role of dilettante Jenny Barnes, whose Investigator Profile appeared in the back of Issue #1.
So, while you're waiting for The Tides of Innsmouth to be published next spring, or if you have yet to sample what an Arkham Horror gamebook is like, why not pick up a copy of The Terror at the End of Time #3 today, and check it out?
This week, Fantasy Flight Games and Aconyte Books announced the title of the second Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook that will be published next spring.
As with the first Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook, The Darkness Over Arkham, the book includes profiles for three new Investigators - Silas Marsh the Sailor, Kōhaku Narukami the Folklorist, and Marion Taveres the Trawler.
However, you can also play as any of the Investigators from the first book, the three bonus Investigators currently available from the Aconyte Books website, or even as Jenny Barnes the Dilettante or Joe Diamond the Private Investigator, who appear in the back matter of the Arkham Horror comic book The Terror at the End of Time #1.
That means you can currently play as one of 11 unique Investigators. Not bad, eh?
You can expect a cover reveal and more information about the adventure towards the end of the month. However, as part of Arkham Nights this week, a brief snippet of me talking about the book was played into the livestream of Unfathomable - From the Abyss on Halloween. (You'll find me at 00:04:44.)
