Gamebook Friday: GM's Day Sale 2025

The GM's Day Sale is still on over on DriveThruRPG, and will be over the weekend. So, now is a good time to take advantage of the discounts on offer and grab those ACE Gamebooks and ACE Gamebooks Roleplay products you've been meaning to get hold of.

The Box of Delights - The Roleplaying Game - Just £12.00 for the PDF

A rules-lite RPG for 2-6 Players, plus a Gamesmaster, inspired by John Masefield's Christmas classic. Designed to be picked up and played with minimal preparation, it nonetheless includes a well-developed character creation system, as well as rules for combat and magic. It is ideal for a festive gaming session with an established group, or as an alternative to the family games usually played at Christmastime.

HEOROT – Roleplaying in the World of Beowulf Beastslayer - £12.40 for the PDF

A rules-lite RPG for 2-7 Players, inspired by the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, Viking legends, Norse mythology, and the Icelandic sagas. Players take on the role of noble heroes and their brave companions, who are guided through their adventure by the Skald. There are three different ways to enjoy the game, but all involve an element of storytelling, for it is through telling tall tales of their heroic deeds that players increase their Wyrd, which in turn gives them the ability to perform heroic feats during their adventures that would otherwise be beyond the capabilities of mortal men. Designed to be picked up and played with minimal preparation, Heorot nonetheless includes a well-developed character creation system, as well as rules for combat, and a random adventure generator. It is ideal for both an established gaming group and as a way of introducing new players to the fantastical world of roleplaying games.

’TWAS – The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas - Just £3.00!

A rules-lite RPG for 2-7 Players, inspired by the legends and literature of Christmas. Designed to be picked up and played with minimal preparation, it nonetheless includes a well-developed character creation system, as well as rules for combat and magic. It is ideal for a festive gaming session with an established group, or as an alternative to the games usually played on Christmas Day.

Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland, and other ACE Gamebooks for just £4.75 each!

Have you ever wondered what would have happened if Alice hadn’t drunk from the bottle labelled ‘Drink Me’, or if she hadn’t joined the Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse for tea? Well now you can find out. In Alice’s Nightmare in Wonderland, YOU decide which route Alice should take, which perils to risk, and which of Wonderland’s strange denizens to fight. But be warned – whether Alice succeeds in her quest or meets a dire end as the nightmare escalates will be down to the choices YOU make. Are you ready to go back down the rabbit-hole?

Gamebook Friday: ACE Gamebooks at AireCon 2025

Two weeks today, Friday 14th March 2025, I will be at AireCon in Harrogate, until Sunday 16th March.

You will find ACE Gamebooks at Booth A11 in Hall M, sandwiched between Mantic and Red Mug Crafts. 

If will have copies of all my ACE Gamebooks with me - seeing as how 2025 is the 10th Anniversary of the publication of the first book in the series, Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland - and all three ACE Gamebooks Roleplay RPGs.

If you're attending AireCon over the weekend, do stop by Booth A11 and say hello, and maybe pick up a book as well.

Meanwhile, don't forget that the ACE Gamebooks/YOU ARE THE HERO Quick Deal is still running on Bundle of Holding, whereby you can pick up $129's worth of PDFs for just $19.95 (or your currency equivalent).

You Are The Hero Bundle of Holding Quick Deal Offer

Live now is the YOU ARE THE HERO Bundle of Holding.

For a limited time, this YOU ARE THE HERO Quick Deal presents the 40th anniversary edition of YOU ARE THE HERO plus seven interactive ACE Gamebooks, and the Heorot RPG.

Part history, part celebration, YOU ARE THE HERO chronicles four decades of the Fighting Fantasy phenomenon, written by Yours Truly (author of eight Fighting Fantasy gamebooks), this revised, updated, and lavishly illustrated tome will appeal to anyone who ever whiled away a washed-out summer holiday with only two dice and a pencil for company.

The YOU ARE THE HERO Quick Deal is live until 11:00pm PST on Tuesday 4th March 2025.

Gamebook Friday: La Nuit du Loup-Garou

The new edition of La Nuit du Loup-Garou, the French language edition of Howl of the Werewolf, is out now from Gallimard Jeunesse

Here's the translated blurb from the back of the book:

You would have to be crazy to cross the borders of the windswept, fog-shrouded, and soul-haunted principality of Lupravia. And yet, that is what YOU must do. A monstrous wolf has cruelly bitten you and you are now struck by a terrible curse. Fail in this new adventure and the beast that now lies dormant within you will not be able to resist the call of the Werewolf. You have until the next full moon!

Bonus: The Archives of the Old World will reveal to you everything a hero worthy of the name must know!

Two dice, a pencil and an eraser: embark on the adventure! YOU alone will decide the route to follow, the risks to take and the creatures to fight. GOOD LUCK... 

This is the fourth of my FF gamebooks to appear in this new edition, although all eight have been published in French at one time or another.

  

Gamebook Friday: I ♥ ACE Gamebooks

It's Valentine's Day and nothing says "I love you" like buying your sweetheart an ACE Gamebook. With that in mind, there is currently a sale running over on the ACE Gamebooks Roleplay page on DriveThruRPG this weekend.

So, if you're missing a book from your collection - such as the new The Box of Delights RPG - now would be a great time to rectify that situation.

Love you guys!

The Box of Delights - The Roleplaying Game

Physical copies of The Box of Delights RPG are now available from DriveThruRPG.

To grab your copy, follow this link. To check out the print proofs of the book, watch the video below.

Gamebook Friday: Can You Solve the Murder?

This week, I was excited to receive an advanced reader copy of Antony Johnston's new interactive crime novel Can You Solve the Murder?

I was fortunate enough to be a beta reader for this last year. Since then a few changes have been made to the story, including the gender of one of the main characters, so it will be interesting to give it another read now.

Here's the publisher's blurb...

There’s been a murder at Elysium, a wellness retreat set in an English country manor. You arrive to find the body of a local businessman on the lawn – with a rose placed in his mouth. It appears he was stabbed with a gardening fork and fell to his death from the balcony above. But that balcony can only be accessed through a locked door, the key is missing, and everyone in Elysium is now a suspect…

Gather the evidence and examine the clues. Choose who to interview next, and who to accuse as your prime suspect. But remember that every decision you make has consequences – and some of them will prove fatal… 

Do you have what it takes? Can YOU solve the murder?

The great thing about Can You Solve the Murder? is that while it isn't a gamebook in the style of Fighting Fantasy or ACE Gamebooks, it isn't simply a branching narrative like a Choose Your Own Adventure story, where everything is revealed at the end.

There are clues to be collected and a puzzle to be solved. At the end, in classic murder mystery style, you have to declare who you think the murderer is. But you can't just guess who it might be - you have to have the evidence to back up your suspicions.

I met Antony Johnston for the first time last year after Fighting Fantasy Fest, despite having both worked for Abaddon Books when the imprint started out, and he is a huge gamebook fan. In fact, he wrote a glowing review of Dracula: Curse of the Vampire.

Can You Solve the Murder? will be published by Penguin Books* in June 2025.

* Parent company of Puffin Books, who originally published the Fighting Fantasy series.