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FYI There is also a second twin book set in this series, and all four are available online for free in PDF form thanks to ann archive & the Project Aon License.
This is blowing my mind. It's a Choose-Your-Own First Person Shooter, that is Multiplayer(!), but also has concurrent Single Player Modes (that are different depending on which book of the pair you're playing). AND it not only has multiplayer, but has a Campaign Mode. All while being 90% full page illustrations. And it all has to work together in a coherent way within itself, AND with its partner book. The amount of work that must have gone into not only producing this book, but doing so in a way that gives replay value, is astounding. They could have just made this a simple game that wears thin after a few runs. But they went the extra mile to give the player their money's worth.
@@chaotickreg7024 wait till you hear that the person designing this didn't look at the math - they did it by feel the way most high level things like this are done : same as in music and visual arts. There isn't really a combination or something spectacular here requiring formulas to run it behind the scenes so it will work.
@Gany J I don't agree that this game invented the first person shooter genre, though... Maze Wars existed since 1973: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_(1973_video_game)
@@chaotickreg7024 because the author Dever says he just did it all intuitively. When he got stuck on what page number to use in a specific place, he just flipped through the stuff he’d already finished writing to figure it out. There was no massive number table, map or design brief beyond what’s presented to you in the two books
The way the complexity of these Game Books grew as the genre blew up back in the day until video games took over was really great to see. You went from basic branching paths, to rpg campaigns and then expanded combat systems. Those were really the days of folks merging books and gameplay.
ive been making games on paper since i was a kid where its sipposed to be interactive but i kept failing. i love the fact that THIS BOOK EXIST. my joy is immeasurable:'))
When you want to make a videogame, you don't know how to program, but you know how to draw. This needs to be reprint or get a spiritual successor. Mind-blowing.
This game *is* a program, software doesn't have to exist on a computer. This is software whose instruction set is compatible with the human mind. Just 20 years before this book, all programming was done on paper and software didn't make it's way anywhere near a computer until it was complete or nearly complete.
@@tissuepaper9962 one probably didn’t have to be pedantic about it when it’s clear they understood the point I was trying to make. Thanks for the history lesson and widened perspective though.
@@HitsujiMamoru I wasn't trying to "correct" you or be a pedant, I just disagree with the false dichotomy you're drawing between programming and the "creative" arts. Making this book is fundamentally the same skill as writing a program for an electronic computer. The real game is in the boxes under the drawings. The drawings themselves are merely mnemonic devices to help keep the player oriented.
@@tissuepaper9962 right. I see what you mean now. The way I wrote it does sound like I was doing a hierarchy with books at the bottom and computers at the top. Everyone got what I meant but it still sounds like it. Thanks for correcting me. I will be more careful.
I remember that pair in my school library from years back. They had a dogfight battle, like the original books that inspired the series. I wonder how similar they are?
The saddest part of this video is that dear Joe Dever is no longer with us, and all known available copies of these books have been bought out. The few that remain go for HUNDREDS of dollars, and I'm sure that this video has had an impact on their desirability. Shame I only learned about them now or I would’ve spared little expense to get my hands on all 4. P.S. the other 2 are called "Scarlet Sorcerer" and "Emerald Enchanter"
John Dever generously offered some of his books to Project Aon to be distributed online for free. Luckily, the Black Baron & White Warlord books are amongst them, and you can download the PDF versions of these books here: www.projectaon.org/en/Main/BlackBaron www.projectaon.org/en/Main/WhiteWarlord Cheers!
The second 'Combat Heroes' pair ("Scarlet Sorcerer"/"Emerald Enchanter") is basically a fantasy version of 'Aces of Aces' with magical flying ships (right down to the 8 way view points and pseudo-hex map movement scheme); the solo adventure in both books is a map crawl where you are trying to find the magic gem your recently deceased mentor has hidden before the Deathlord finds it and conquers your homeland - the adventure has a time limit, where you need to find the gem within (I think) 30 in-game days as you travel the map, looking for clues as to the gem's location. As an aside, the creators of the 'Way of the Tiger' gamebook series (Mark Smith & Jamie Thompson) also created a 'One on One' series of books called 'Duel Master', which were more like a traditional text-based gamebook (vs the graphic based ones like 'Combat Heroes', 'Lost Worlds', etc), but used several Time based mechanics and code words to track a Player's location and progress; • "Challenge of the Magi" involved dueling mages travelling through a series of dimensions based on the five colours of Magic to collect resources and to ambush their rival ( before M:tG was even a thing) ; • "Blood Valley" involved one player being a slave (a Barbarian, a Thief or a Priest ) that has been released by the other player (who plays the cruel Archveult, a demonic/dragon-kin like being who rules the Valley and who conducts an annual hunt for their own pleasure), with the slave trying to either escape the valley or gather enough resources to turn the tables on their hunter and destroy them; • "The Shattered Realm" involves the players being the heads of two kingdoms fated by prophecy to go to war, with one annihilating the other - the first part being you and the other player trying to establish alliances with the neighbouring kingdoms (to get them to add their troops to your standing army), and the second part being the actual battle which takes place on a square grid); • "The Arena of Death" involves the players being Gladiators in the Arena of Mortavalon, who alternate between stalking each other in an above ground colosseum (divided into 4 areas), and a massive underground complex filled with traps, threats and potential allies who can assist the gladiators. Each set except "Blood Valley" have rules for solo play (though it's usually nothing more complex that rolling a die to if the "other player" has a specific code word or not) If you (and your kid) feel up for a slightly more complicated challenge, I recommend looking out for the 'Duel Master' series on the usual second hand book places (just make sure you're getting Books 1 *and* 2 of each set if playing two player). 👍
Lost Worlds was the largest block of these. Most were based off of Grenadier miniatures, but they also did Battle Tech (with somewhat different rules). There were also Ace of Aces books for Star Wars. AND there is also the Japanese "Queens Blade" series of books (which came about when the lost worlds idea was carried overseas by Flying Buffalo). Where you can not only injure your opponent, you can damage their clothing (and dignity). This system was biggest in the 80s and early 90s, but it keeps coming back..
I remember finding a SHD-2H Shadowhawk Data Card in a box of old RPG and wargame sets 20 years ago not knowing what it was for. In the same box, I found the 2nd edition Battletach rulebook and was surprise by how awesomely post-apocalyptic the pre-Clan Invasion era was (I was never a fan of the Clans or Helm Core tech, so that made me reject them even more). As for the Data Card, I found it neat that you had options like high & low laser attacks, duck, cool down, wild swing and the like, as well as combat skills for each type/class of weapon, including hand-to-hand. Until I found PDFs of the Nova Games gamebooks floating online some ten years ago, all the numbers on the card made no sense to me. Its a neat rule set and I wish you could have battlemechs function a little more like in the Nova books (sans the messy CYOA setup).
There was a Star Wars Lost Worlds game, called Lightsaber Duel. It features Luke and Vader from Return of the Jedi facing off against each other. I still have my copy.
I had no idea this existed and it's absolutely incredible, I can't even begin to imagine how hard it must've been for the writers to make something like this.
same! its absolutely mind blowing imo! amount of hard work,talent and creativity (with limited resources in that case books/paper) at the all time high.
Lone Wolf game books were my jam as a kid. Really excellent elevation of the 'choose your adventure' format - where you would pick skills and abilities at the start that would give you options to move to different pages if you had that skill or ability.
This looks like the type of thing I would have tried to make as a kid before giving up after three days. I was enchanted by books that function differently than most books growing up, and this is still very much up my alley now, but would have been especially so back then. Maybe I'll look for some copies at some point and try the game with my brother. I bet he'd love this!
This is the kind of thing I wished existed as a free to play browser game. Like... I don't think I'm going to purchase these books and muddle through them. But if it was all digitally streamlined so it tells you what options you have and all you have to do is make decisions and click buttons, that would be a fun time. I'd click around in the browser based version of this for sure.
@@7tales311 no i thibk more like, just a website version of this, not exactly aiming, still using the charts and selecting numbers, more like a point and click browser game
Growing up in the late 80s/early 90s and seeing how choose your own adventures were popular - this would’ve blown my mind if I could find it. Thanks for the video. This is awesome!
Ace of Aces! I grew up on that game (simplified variant) and I remember mapping out all the moves in it and realizing they all fit onto a hex map. The pages ended up being every orientation of two planes within three hexes of each other with every other result being LOST with another neutral start if you both go looking for each other. The rules also mentioned that you could play more than a duel given more books and bookmarks so that you saw a different page for each enemy, but had to take the same action against each
That is really freaking cool that someone figured out how to make a multiplayer book! As an amateur game designer for both board games and video games I think I need to track down some copies of these kinds of books.
I found one of these in my primary school library (around 1988 or something), and could not for the life of me figure out how it worked, no matter how much I was busting to play it. The pages looked so awesome, but I just had no idea! Now I learn it's basically a multiplayer game requiring two books! Hahaha! Cheers. Great to see it again. :D
Thanks to current copyright laws, you can either find the current rights holder, and pay to licence it to do so, or wait until November 2086 when it will be public / copyright free!
Early Lone Wolf rpg game books were the most complex of their type in reproducing ad&d style gaming for one in a paperback form. Chasm of Doom was a monster, dark complex and easy to die. Phenomenal interactive fiction. Incredible work of the imagination.
@@LordVader1094 brilliant! For impact and all over appeal nothing beats the Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy series, but the Lone Wolf series was another layer of complexity and thematic power that a gamer could ‘graduate’ into when they were ready. Lone Wolf makes sense as the natural evolution from the confluence of the humble (but incredible) Choose Your Own Adventure books with the mechanics and purity of AD&D. It was an incredibly exciting time for game book invention.
Still got the whole set of them. It was great fun back then. Though, admittedly, I cheated on occasion, like going back on some "oops, you died!" sort of decisions - or the reverse, checking out some obviously bad decision despite then taking another route.
@@drsnova7313 man that’s cool. All the books. I can understand the temptation to cheat. Unlike CYOA dying in the middle of a game book was a real drag, because the gameplay was so much more involved and took much longer. Those “you died” death messages were brutal 😬
There are also digital versions of these on Project Aon, which also contain all of the Joe Dever Lone Wolf books officially endorsed by the man himself before his passing.
the fact that you call out numbers rather than roll them in combat is interesting.. I feel like you eventually wind up memorizing number combinations so if you hear your opponent start to say like, "seven" you say a number that goes favorably with it for you. Saying things at the exact same time is difficult to both do and enforce
My teens absolutely loved the Lone Wolf series, but I didn't know these amazing books existed. Thanks so much for highlighting their features, what an innovative concept.
Woah, thats amazing! Hats off to the game designers who managed to create such a thing. Having the other player move and correctly portraying that on the pages of the book is really amazing!
This is hands down the most interesting thing I’ve seen in a while! That fact it’s fully coherent aswell and looks kinda fun makes this even more amazing! Thanks for sharing these with us !
Takes me back. A friend and I played these during a few school lunchtimes. Short-lived really, because I remember running Palace of the Silver Princess later that term - a couple more kids had been interested in what we'd been playing, so it opened up a chance to play D&D at school. I'd totally forgotten about the books though. Thanks for the memory.
I only know of the Magnakai Lone Wolf series from this author and could only buy a few books back then... Didn't know he had more series out there, even today. It's my first ever experience in knowing about such a roleplaying game in book form as well.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this. You did an amazing job explaining the mechanics and how these books work. I was not expecting it to be that in depth!
You could take a look at the two new Fighting Fantasy books - Shadow of the Giants by Ian Livingstone and Secrets of Salamonis by Steve Jackson Secrets of Salmonis is very very innovative and really worth playing, as it has lots of ideas you could pick from for a city based DnD campaign.
This is really similar to the Star Wars battle books that I have seen! In those it is a Tie Interceptor vs an X Wing with each having their own unique maneuvers
Already backed Dark places and Demogorgons! These kind of books show off how crazy dedicated people can be; The sheer amount of notes that had to have gone into creating the books boogles the mind. It's literally paper computing, a fully functioning game. There are definitely a lot of factors in why we don't really see this kind of stuff anymore, but I think the sheer amount of time required to make it and the low visibility this kind of stuff has are some of the biggest reasons. I totally can see some people who'd probably go crazy making these kinds of books if they were just free to do that
I’d love to make books like these. I used to make complicated Choose Your Own Adventure “books” out of notebook paper with illustrations when I was younger. I’d love to make one again on a larger scale
The fact that this is a really complex version of one of those interactive computer games where you click to choose your direction, but its multiplayer... and all in a book
I turn around and see the White Warlord book behind me! My brother has the Black Baron one. We loved playing them back on the day. I keep wanting to Discord chat with him and play them, and maybe I finally will! I am also a huge fan of the solo adventure books. I currently own all but one of the ancient TSR CYOA books (the first Tarzan book is impossible to find without paying some greedy bastard $300USD for some reason). Marvel comics in the early 2000s came out with a comic series of combat comics similar to the ww/bb and ace of aces books which are also awesome.
I cannot find these for sale ANYWHERE! Ugh this got me so excited and my dreams were dashed away shortly after. I’m so jealous of anyone who has them just from growing up with them.
This is amazing. What a work of art. I really like how rolling a d20 is just two players shouting a number from 1-10 and adding it together. That’s such a fun idea. I hope more modern ttrpgs pick it up. Thank you for sharing!
Omg. Thank you so much for sharing and appreciating this! Used to play these with my brother. We called them “white knight, black knight.” Unfortunately, when I tried to google them years later I couldn’t remember the original titles. Now you’ve found them for me! Wonder if bro is up for a game?
I've seen Choose Your Own Adventure books before but this is a really innovative way to put books in kids's hands. Also, I see inspiration from games like Dungeon Master and other old school first-person dungeon crawlers. (Legend of Grimrock is a modern example, try it!)
7:20 why would the author want to make it clear that the dungeon is miniscule? No one would take the books seriously if they thought you were chasing a half-dressed man around a figure 8.
I had a similar book when I was a kid, you were dropped into an arena with a maze beneath it and the two players were supposed to stop at key pages and check if the other was in the same room, if so there was a combat system through which you could fight one another. Neat to see someone talking about a similar set of books in 2022.
holy crap, i think i had one of these. i vaguely remember the art, and have faint memories of trying to play this with my friend in fifth grade, but never really figuring it out. wouldnt surprise me, as i bought all the lone wolf books too
There's also a second set of books in the same series, Scarlet Sorcerer and Emerald Enchanter, in which the 2-player game is aerial combat in magic skyships (possibly somewhat like Ace of Aces, which I've paged through back in the day, but don't own). The solo games in this set consist of flying over segments of a landscape / map, trying to discover the location of some magic Power Crystal. My White Warlord/Black Baron books have a different cover, but the inside looks identical to the ones in the video. Possibly UK vs US versions?
You be correct - the ones in this video are the US versions published by Berkley Pacer, with black back covers and spines; the UK versions were published by Beaver Books and had white back covers and spines - AFAIK, they are identical on the inside.
The fact that the author needed to illustrate each page to follow the same structure as the rest and it the fact it's hand-drawn is incredibly impressive. It might seem simple but each image nails the visual style of medieval books. I love this concept and these books are amazing works of art if you ask me.
This reminds me of a fantasy roleplaying game book I used to have when I was younger, it was called Wizard of Firetop Mountain, and you had to roll a pair of dice to progress, or combat enemies.
That's the most unique thing I seen in a while! When I was a kid, there were books called "Book in which you are the hero" (Livre dans lequel vous êtes le héros), which apparents itself a bit with this concept. Tho, it was not PVP, and you actually had to read your way through the story, make choices... Which could be fatal to the story. It was fun.
As a computer science student I really like this concept, it's like if the book was the memory/program and you the player/processor. It also reminds me of a book a friend and I used in the elementary school's library, it was about a knight in a dungeon or something like that, the cover had a skeleton and the book was a couple inches thick, you needed to play with a couple of dice, pencil and paper.
As a kid I could never find White Warlord, but I wanted to play this so bad! I actually had copies of the other two books in this series, where you play as fighter jet wizards - not a joke, seriously. One was called Emerald Enchanter... I think the other one was Scarlet Sorcerer. Played it all the time with my friends. The Emerald Enchanter looked somewhat Mexican on the cover of the book, so we started calling him Spanish Fly. True story!
This is such a cool idea Ben. I would totally buy this. I kinda wish someone would make a modern version as a D&D minigame or something. You could even do a scifi version with lazguns and vibroswords or lightsabers. I wonder how it would play with 3 or 4 people on a slightly bigger map?
could turn it into 2v2, where 2 players move together as a unit, each with different abilities. one controls the movement, the other could be focused on combat, or scouting abilities, to find the opponents. difficult, but could be done to minimize variables but add replayability.
I still have a 1 on 1 adventure game book "Dragon Wand of Krynn" that is almost identical to this. Looks like it was published in 1987. I also have three AD&D adventure gamebooks that are essentially choose your adventure but with stat sheets and dice.
When the TH-cam algorithm actually works it brings wonderful gems like this video. You got a sub from me, congratulations on getting over 500k views in nearly 2 weeks more than your drawing video did in 5 years. Can't wait to see more of your content!
I remember being in 3rd grade and reading books that you the reader made choices on how the story turned out, and would tell you to turn to a specific page depending on which choice you make and each choice can lead you down a totally different story and ending. Loved them.
@@zachl9260 every one??? Literally everyone you say??? Wow. That's collective knowledge on another level. Countries that don't have education or books or can't even read I'm sure know about this as well right. "Everyone knows" 👏
Pretty sure I'm never getting a copy now.🤣 I picked up White Warlord on a trip to Kmart with my mom...at the same trip I got Def Leppard's Hysteria. I would love to see a company put these as phone apps one day.
Ace of Aces also had a dungeon version with several different characters that all worked together. The way it worked was you exchange your character books but kept a card related to your character that had your moves.
I kinda feel a bit smarter when i know about something that Ben does not hahahaha. Yeah, those books are amazing, and so was Joe Dever, he will forever be missed. I highly recommend his gamebooks.
Love this! Please do the Lone Wolf series next. Also, if you want to read a mysterious, atmospheric, immersive story-based puzzle book, read Maze by Christopher Phillips. Trust me, it's amazing.
Joe Dever is a genius, Lone Wolf and World of Lone Wolf was my favorite series as a kid. Tabletop but you didn't even need a dice (random number chart in the back of the book). So many good twists and turns fascinated me and I didn't even mind the few times I got taken out because it was an excuse to do it all over again. This doesn't surprise me, but sheesh Mr. Dever, your awesomeness deserves more love and attention, thanks Questing Beast for showing these off. There is Lone Wolf on Steam also.
As soon as I read the title I had an idea of what was going on, but even still it’s so damn cool that books like this exist. Every time I see one of these types of books it really impresses me
"The book with a first person shooter inside." Me: "Ugh, I hate it when people do this. Listen, just because a game is in first person doesn't make it an FPS, ok? You have to, you know... shoot?" "We're at range 1, which is just outside melee range, and we could shoot bows at each other." Me: "I MEAN YEAH OK SURE but the point of a shooter is to use your skill to hit your target. Not like whatever simple action system this thing uses." "So you're going to turn to this page, the Bow Fire Grid." Me: "....." Really good video! You speak very clearly and present things well, and this was super interesting! My only regret is that you didn't at least briefly flip through the other book so we could see some of the art of the White Warlord. The illustrations in these things rule.
Reminds me of another series of books called "1 on 1". It was a similar idea but in more of a standard gamebook format. It was made by TSR so also had some D&D elements.
There's some nostalgia for real. Loved all of Joe Dever's stuff, very creative designs and stories. The Lone Wolf stuff is available on apps these days.
So cool! I've never had the opportunity to play D&D stuff, but this looks fun! I remember my grandma had this old electronic D&D game where you'd press buttons and put up little plastic walls
I had a similar book but it was planes dogfight where each player had a representation of the other plane from its own perspective and had to chose his next move to try to align it in its visor (both planes moved at the same time).
I remember seeing a battletech variant of this. They had 6 books or so. Each one was a different mech. The twist was, that you were supposed to hand your book to your opponent, because your book contained the visuals of your own mech, which he of course was supposed to see.
In the early 1980's a friend of mine had Ace of Aces. We loved playing it. Also, we took to walking through our maneouvres so that we could better understand what was going on in the dogfight. I haven't played this fantasy one but in general, I miss those "choose your own adventure" style books.
What would be a perfect compliment is a reference bookmark that could also be moved up or down to track statuses (and keep your place in case you want to pause the game)
Wow, what a blast from the past. My best friend through school had both of those sets (Combat Heroes and Ace of Aces). So much fun. Over the Reich and Achtung Spitfire! are basically computer game versions of Ace of Aces that came out in the 90s, also loads of fun. He also had a similar set that I can't for the life of me remember the name of. It was a PvPvE system where one player starts off as this OP dragon lord thing (I'm pretty sure called the Archebald or something), and the other player is a captive who has been released to be hunted down for sport. The captive gets a few free turns to make their escape while the other player uses the time to set traps, gear up and gloat. Then the chase is on, except the play area is significantly larger and more varied and there are environmental hazards and beasts that will attack both players. The goal for the captive is to escape the lands or find good gear and level up enough to kill the hunter, the Archebald has to track down the captive and kill them before they escape or get too powerful. IIRC it kind of plays similarly in that if the captive kills a monster then when the hunter reaches the same spot they're told to go to a different page that says the monster has already been slain, so they know they're on the right track. They're both also playable solo. Then I found the sister set to that one in an old book store, that I also can't remember the name of. They were also PvPvE except the scope was a lot broader and the goal was for each player to negotiate with nearby societies and raise an army large enough to defeat the other player in an epic battle.
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Get Black Baron here: amzn.to/3EafPir
Get them on eBay: ebay.us/g9yL99
Patreon: bit.ly/QBPatreon
FYI There is also a second twin book set in this series, and all four are available online for free in PDF form thanks to ann archive & the Project Aon License.
There's a certain joy in making your own maps
There was another one (sci fi) which was a dog fight in the air!
I had both of these - there was single player version
This videos only 11 days old and both amazon links are now sold out with no way to tell what they sold for
This gives me hope that one day I will find a book that I can play Doom on
Running doom on flipbooks at 120 fps
@@shuvodipbarua6001 o.o thas a big book...
Each level would need to be a new book
Knee-deep in pages
Underrated comment. Had me cracking up. 😆
This is blowing my mind. It's a Choose-Your-Own First Person Shooter, that is Multiplayer(!), but also has concurrent Single Player Modes (that are different depending on which book of the pair you're playing). AND it not only has multiplayer, but has a Campaign Mode.
All while being 90% full page illustrations. And it all has to work together in a coherent way within itself, AND with its partner book.
The amount of work that must have gone into not only producing this book, but doing so in a way that gives replay value, is astounding. They could have just made this a simple game that wears thin after a few runs. But they went the extra mile to give the player their money's worth.
The amount of math and theory that goes into making complex games like this boggle my mind.
@@chaotickreg7024 wait till you hear that the person designing this didn't look at the math - they did it by feel the way most high level things like this are done : same as in music and visual arts. There isn't really a combination or something spectacular here requiring formulas to run it behind the scenes so it will work.
@@agnidas5816 And how do you know that??
@Gany J I don't agree that this game invented the first person shooter genre, though... Maze Wars existed since 1973: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_(1973_video_game)
@@chaotickreg7024 because the author Dever says he just did it all intuitively. When he got stuck on what page number to use in a specific place, he just flipped through the stuff he’d already finished writing to figure it out. There was no massive number table, map or design brief beyond what’s presented to you in the two books
As a game designer, this concept is actually my deepest dream come true. I'm thrilled someone has actually realized this style of gameplay.
Same! I spent hours trying to work out ways to make interactive games on paper. This is inspirational.
The way the complexity of these Game Books grew as the genre blew up back in the day until video games took over was really great to see. You went from basic branching paths, to rpg campaigns and then expanded combat systems. Those were really the days of folks merging books and gameplay.
@@ittixen i was running around in school with my friends designing these on paper, i wasnt the only one making them. it was pretty cool.
ive been making games on paper since i was a kid where its sipposed to be interactive but i kept failing. i love the fact that THIS BOOK EXIST. my joy is immeasurable:'))
@@ittixen YOU TOO??
When you want to make a videogame, you don't know how to program, but you know how to draw.
This needs to be reprint or get a spiritual successor. Mind-blowing.
This game *is* a program, software doesn't have to exist on a computer. This is software whose instruction set is compatible with the human mind. Just 20 years before this book, all programming was done on paper and software didn't make it's way anywhere near a computer until it was complete or nearly complete.
@@tissuepaper9962 one probably didn’t have to be pedantic about it when it’s clear they understood the point I was trying to make. Thanks for the history lesson and widened perspective though.
@@HitsujiMamoru I wasn't trying to "correct" you or be a pedant, I just disagree with the false dichotomy you're drawing between programming and the "creative" arts. Making this book is fundamentally the same skill as writing a program for an electronic computer. The real game is in the boxes under the drawings. The drawings themselves are merely mnemonic devices to help keep the player oriented.
@@tissuepaper9962 right. I see what you mean now. The way I wrote it does sound like I was doing a hierarchy with books at the bottom and computers at the top. Everyone got what I meant but it still sounds like it.
Thanks for correcting me. I will be more careful.
I know right? Creativity to the fullest!
There is also a Scarlet Sorcerer and Emerald Enchanter pair in the Combat Heroes series.
yes, i've seen those in a store LONG ago.
Very cool.
I played those!
Fucking brilliant.
My grade 4 teacher back in 1990 gave me a copy of Scarlett Sorcerer for free. Started my love of fantasy reading.
I remember that pair in my school library from years back. They had a dogfight battle, like the original books that inspired the series. I wonder how similar they are?
It's crazy how creative some people are. This is awesome!
I always love choose your own adventure books, I tried to recreate the entire ZORK-1 dungeon and areas since i was 13 when i first played it xD
Wut?
The saddest part of this video is that dear Joe Dever is no longer with us, and all known available copies of these books have been bought out. The few that remain go for HUNDREDS of dollars, and I'm sure that this video has had an impact on their desirability. Shame I only learned about them now or I would’ve spared little expense to get my hands on all 4. P.S. the other 2 are called "Scarlet Sorcerer" and "Emerald Enchanter"
Its a shame someone doesnt copy it to the internet so somebody can do some reprints
@@jigglypuff3311 I really hope someone will. We need to ask people
John Dever generously offered some of his books to Project Aon to be distributed online for free.
Luckily, the Black Baron & White Warlord books are amongst them, and you can download the PDF versions of these books here:
www.projectaon.org/en/Main/BlackBaron
www.projectaon.org/en/Main/WhiteWarlord
Cheers!
@@jigglypuff3311 Someone did! Look at Project Aon and they have ALL the Joe Dever books as downloadable PDFs and a guide on how to play them
@@LukacsyGergely Thank you!
The second 'Combat Heroes' pair ("Scarlet Sorcerer"/"Emerald Enchanter") is basically a fantasy version of 'Aces of Aces' with magical flying ships (right down to the 8 way view points and pseudo-hex map movement scheme); the solo adventure in both books is a map crawl where you are trying to find the magic gem your recently deceased mentor has hidden before the Deathlord finds it and conquers your homeland - the adventure has a time limit, where you need to find the gem within (I think) 30 in-game days as you travel the map, looking for clues as to the gem's location.
As an aside, the creators of the 'Way of the Tiger' gamebook series (Mark Smith & Jamie Thompson) also created a 'One on One' series of books called 'Duel Master', which were more like a traditional text-based gamebook (vs the graphic based ones like 'Combat Heroes', 'Lost Worlds', etc), but used several Time based mechanics and code words to track a Player's location and progress;
• "Challenge of the Magi" involved dueling mages travelling through a series of dimensions based on the five colours of Magic to collect resources and to ambush their rival ( before M:tG was even a thing) ;
• "Blood Valley" involved one player being a slave (a Barbarian, a Thief or a Priest ) that has been released by the other player (who plays the cruel Archveult, a demonic/dragon-kin like being who rules the Valley and who conducts an annual hunt for their own pleasure), with the slave trying to either escape the valley or gather enough resources to turn the tables on their hunter and destroy them;
• "The Shattered Realm" involves the players being the heads of two kingdoms fated by prophecy to go to war, with one annihilating the other - the first part being you and the other player trying to establish alliances with the neighbouring kingdoms (to get them to add their troops to your standing army), and the second part being the actual battle which takes place on a square grid);
• "The Arena of Death" involves the players being Gladiators in the Arena of Mortavalon, who alternate between stalking each other in an above ground colosseum (divided into 4 areas), and a massive underground complex filled with traps, threats and potential allies who can assist the gladiators.
Each set except "Blood Valley" have rules for solo play (though it's usually nothing more complex that rolling a die to if the "other player" has a specific code word or not)
If you (and your kid) feel up for a slightly more complicated challenge, I recommend looking out for the 'Duel Master' series on the usual second hand book places (just make sure you're getting Books 1 *and* 2 of each set if playing two player). 👍
Veritable treasure trove, I don’t need to speculate about these anymore. Ty
s឴top឴ i m឴i឴gh឴t឴ c឴u឴m឴
Nioce
Holy nerd, what the hell did you just say
This is the strangest rabbit hole I've discovered myself in!
Lost Worlds was the largest block of these. Most were based off of Grenadier miniatures, but they also did Battle Tech (with somewhat different rules). There were also Ace of Aces books for Star Wars. AND there is also the Japanese "Queens Blade" series of books (which came about when the lost worlds idea was carried overseas by Flying Buffalo). Where you can not only injure your opponent, you can damage their clothing (and dignity). This system was biggest in the 80s and early 90s, but it keeps coming back..
Lost Worlds, I remember, but I regret never having bought the BattleTech books because I am currently very interested in BattleTech.
I think I have 10 of the lost worlds or so.
I remember finding a SHD-2H Shadowhawk Data Card in a box of old RPG and wargame sets 20 years ago not knowing what it was for. In the same box, I found the 2nd edition Battletach rulebook and was surprise by how awesomely post-apocalyptic the pre-Clan Invasion era was (I was never a fan of the Clans or Helm Core tech, so that made me reject them even more). As for the Data Card, I found it neat that you had options like high & low laser attacks, duck, cool down, wild swing and the like, as well as combat skills for each type/class of weapon, including hand-to-hand. Until I found PDFs of the Nova Games gamebooks floating online some ten years ago, all the numbers on the card made no sense to me. Its a neat rule set and I wish you could have battlemechs function a little more like in the Nova books (sans the messy CYOA setup).
There was a Star Wars Lost Worlds game, called Lightsaber Duel. It features Luke and Vader from Return of the Jedi facing off against each other. I still have my copy.
@@AllanGoodall I had that one, too! I remember thinking how awesome it was back then.
I had no idea this existed and it's absolutely incredible, I can't even begin to imagine how hard it must've been for the writers to make something like this.
same! its absolutely mind blowing imo! amount of hard work,talent and creativity (with limited resources in that case books/paper) at the all time high.
@@superslavbross9935 It's either the author is a genius or he's one super bored man, it's amazing either way
This is such a wild concept. Game designers brains blow me away sometimes!
Lone Wolf game books were my jam as a kid.
Really excellent elevation of the 'choose your adventure' format - where you would pick skills and abilities at the start that would give you options to move to different pages if you had that skill or ability.
They are currently being republished month by month in some 'Master/Collectible' format but quite expensive as only hardback for now.
check project Aon
@@jbertucci awesome.
I played it and was blown away, they have it on PC and mobile too
This looks like the type of thing I would have tried to make as a kid before giving up after three days. I was enchanted by books that function differently than most books growing up, and this is still very much up my alley now, but would have been especially so back then. Maybe I'll look for some copies at some point and try the game with my brother. I bet he'd love this!
Have you ever checked out "ergodic" literature?
This is the kind of thing I wished existed as a free to play browser game. Like... I don't think I'm going to purchase these books and muddle through them. But if it was all digitally streamlined so it tells you what options you have and all you have to do is make decisions and click buttons, that would be a fun time. I'd click around in the browser based version of this for sure.
there's a pdf of each book
did. Did you just describe an actual fps?
@@7tales311 Kinda! It wouldn't be a very FPS-ey FPS, but it would be more FPS than Portal.
Maybe it would be a turn-based first-person shooter?
@@7tales311 no i thibk more like, just a website version of this, not exactly aiming, still using the charts and selecting numbers, more like a point and click browser game
Sounds like a pdf with hyperlinks.
Growing up in the late 80s/early 90s and seeing how choose your own adventures were popular - this would’ve blown my mind if I could find it. Thanks for the video. This is awesome!
Ace of Aces! I grew up on that game (simplified variant) and I remember mapping out all the moves in it and realizing they all fit onto a hex map. The pages ended up being every orientation of two planes within three hexes of each other with every other result being LOST with another neutral start if you both go looking for each other.
The rules also mentioned that you could play more than a duel given more books and bookmarks so that you saw a different page for each enemy, but had to take the same action against each
That is really freaking cool that someone figured out how to make a multiplayer book! As an amateur game designer for both board games and video games I think I need to track down some copies of these kinds of books.
I found one of these in my primary school library (around 1988 or something), and could not for the life of me figure out how it worked, no matter how much I was busting to play it. The pages looked so awesome, but I just had no idea!
Now I learn it's basically a multiplayer game requiring two books! Hahaha! Cheers. Great to see it again. :D
I'd love to see this digitized and made into something you could play online, just so I could experience it.
Imagine this is as n online game but works exactly like this.
@@LackadaisicalWizard the only difference being the lack of turning pages
@@ashtonsgotsauce It can have pages on the screen or use digital cards or something but with detailed art and moving sprites
Thanks to current copyright laws, you can either find the current rights holder, and pay to licence it to do so, or wait until November 2086 when it will be public / copyright free!
Or make a "Legally Distinct" version?
Early Lone Wolf rpg game books were the most complex of their type in reproducing ad&d style gaming for one in a paperback form. Chasm of Doom was a monster, dark complex and easy to die. Phenomenal interactive fiction. Incredible work of the imagination.
I have been buying the Definitive Editions of Lone Wolf and playing it for the first time. Absolutely incredible stuff.
@@LordVader1094 brilliant! For impact and all over appeal nothing beats the Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy series, but the Lone Wolf series was another layer of complexity and thematic power that a gamer could ‘graduate’ into when they were ready. Lone Wolf makes sense as the natural evolution from the confluence of the humble (but incredible) Choose Your Own Adventure books with the mechanics and purity of AD&D. It was an incredibly exciting time for game book invention.
Still got the whole set of them. It was great fun back then. Though, admittedly, I cheated on occasion, like going back on some "oops, you died!" sort of decisions - or the reverse, checking out some obviously bad decision despite then taking another route.
@@drsnova7313 man that’s cool. All the books. I can understand the temptation to cheat. Unlike CYOA dying in the middle of a game book was a real drag, because the gameplay was so much more involved and took much longer. Those “you died” death messages were brutal 😬
Finally we can run Doom in a book
🤓
There are also digital versions of these on Project Aon, which also contain all of the Joe Dever Lone Wolf books officially endorsed by the man himself before his passing.
Woah
Awesome
Joe Dever was probably the best author to ever work in the field of Choose-your-own-adventure books. I grew up on his Lone Wolf books. What a genius!
the fact that you call out numbers rather than roll them in combat is interesting.. I feel like you eventually wind up memorizing number combinations so if you hear your opponent start to say like, "seven" you say a number that goes favorably with it for you. Saying things at the exact same time is difficult to both do and enforce
could just write the numbers on a piece of paper beforehand and show the paper
My teens absolutely loved the Lone Wolf series, but I didn't know these amazing books existed. Thanks so much for highlighting their features, what an innovative concept.
Lost Worlds implemented a picture book combat system as well. Lots of character choices.
I never thought a book like these existed. What an amazing idea!!
Woah, thats amazing!
Hats off to the game designers who managed to create such a thing. Having the other player move and correctly portraying that on the pages of the book is really amazing!
Fascinating! Also so much b&w line art I'm drooling
This is hands down the most interesting thing I’ve seen in a while! That fact it’s fully coherent aswell and looks kinda fun makes this even more amazing! Thanks for sharing these with us !
Takes me back. A friend and I played these during a few school lunchtimes. Short-lived really, because I remember running Palace of the Silver Princess later that term - a couple more kids had been interested in what we'd been playing, so it opened up a chance to play D&D at school.
I'd totally forgotten about the books though. Thanks for the memory.
I got the Bounty Hunter: Shootout at the Saloon that has the same concept. Quite fun to play especially after a few drinks.
I only know of the Magnakai Lone Wolf series from this author and could only buy a few books back then... Didn't know he had more series out there, even today. It's my first ever experience in knowing about such a roleplaying game in book form as well.
I remember some choose your own adventure books that took dice and had you track inventory. Pretty fun stuff.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this. You did an amazing job explaining the mechanics and how these books work. I was not expecting it to be that in depth!
You could take a look at the two new Fighting Fantasy books -
Shadow of the Giants by Ian Livingstone and
Secrets of Salamonis by Steve Jackson
Secrets of Salmonis is very very innovative and really worth playing, as it has lots of ideas you could pick from for a city based DnD campaign.
Thank you so much for this. I didnt know that my two heroes of Fighting Fantasy books were still going strong.
This is really similar to the Star Wars battle books that I have seen! In those it is a Tie Interceptor vs an X Wing with each having their own unique maneuvers
the planning that went into designing this is really impressive
Already backed Dark places and Demogorgons! These kind of books show off how crazy dedicated people can be; The sheer amount of notes that had to have gone into creating the books boogles the mind. It's literally paper computing, a fully functioning game. There are definitely a lot of factors in why we don't really see this kind of stuff anymore, but I think the sheer amount of time required to make it and the low visibility this kind of stuff has are some of the biggest reasons. I totally can see some people who'd probably go crazy making these kinds of books if they were just free to do that
I’d love to make books like these. I used to make complicated Choose Your Own Adventure “books” out of notebook paper with illustrations when I was younger. I’d love to make one again on a larger scale
This Video is doing some NUMBERS!!! I hope that means you'll cover the sequal books, Emerald Enchanter & Scarlet Sorcerer...
Lone Wolf was an inspiration for me to get into d&d with my friends. Probably wouldn’t have otherwise.
The fact that this is a really complex version of one of those interactive computer games where you click to choose your direction, but its multiplayer... and all in a book
I turn around and see the White Warlord book behind me! My brother has the Black Baron one. We loved playing them back on the day. I keep wanting to Discord chat with him and play them, and maybe I finally will! I am also a huge fan of the solo adventure books. I currently own all but one of the ancient TSR CYOA books (the first Tarzan book is impossible to find without paying some greedy bastard $300USD for some reason). Marvel comics in the early 2000s came out with a comic series of combat comics similar to the ww/bb and ace of aces books which are also awesome.
This is crazy. Truly a work of art.
That this even exists is fascinating. I'm not sure it would have been exactly to my taste but what an absolute treasure!
This completly blew my mind, not in my wildest dreams I could have thought something like this was even possible for a book
I cannot find these for sale ANYWHERE! Ugh this got me so excited and my dreams were dashed away shortly after. I’m so jealous of anyone who has them just from growing up with them.
This is amazing. What a work of art. I really like how rolling a d20 is just two players shouting a number from 1-10 and adding it together. That’s such a fun idea. I hope more modern ttrpgs pick it up. Thank you for sharing!
It's basically the same as rolling 2d10, you're going to get a bell curve.
Omg. Thank you so much for sharing and appreciating this! Used to play these with my brother. We called them “white knight, black knight.” Unfortunately, when I tried to google them years later I couldn’t remember the original titles. Now you’ve found them for me! Wonder if bro is up for a game?
I've seen Choose Your Own Adventure books before but this is a really innovative way to put books in kids's hands.
Also, I see inspiration from games like Dungeon Master and other old school first-person dungeon crawlers. (Legend of Grimrock is a modern example, try it!)
Since the books came out a year before D.M., it seems it's the other way around.
Now I want to see speedrunners going through the single player campaign and see how fast they can read and flip through pages.
What a cool idea. I can hardly imagine how they originally mapped out all the pieces and kept all the pages straight.
7:20 why would the author want to make it clear that the dungeon is miniscule? No one would take the books seriously if they thought you were chasing a half-dressed man around a figure 8.
This is actually such a cool concept I like it yes yes
As a librarian I must acquire these at all costs.
I had a similar book when I was a kid, you were dropped into an arena with a maze beneath it and the two players were supposed to stop at key pages and check if the other was in the same room, if so there was a combat system through which you could fight one another. Neat to see someone talking about a similar set of books in 2022.
holy crap, i think i had one of these. i vaguely remember the art, and have faint memories of trying to play this with my friend in fifth grade, but never really figuring it out. wouldnt surprise me, as i bought all the lone wolf books too
I've had a few game books in the days of old... The concept of multiplayer books just seems so amazing to me!
There's also a second set of books in the same series, Scarlet Sorcerer and Emerald Enchanter, in which the 2-player game is aerial combat in magic skyships (possibly somewhat like Ace of Aces, which I've paged through back in the day, but don't own). The solo games in this set consist of flying over segments of a landscape / map, trying to discover the location of some magic Power Crystal.
My White Warlord/Black Baron books have a different cover, but the inside looks identical to the ones in the video. Possibly UK vs US versions?
You be correct - the ones in this video are the US versions published by Berkley Pacer, with black back covers and spines; the UK versions were published by Beaver Books and had white back covers and spines - AFAIK, they are identical on the inside.
The fact that the author needed to illustrate each page to follow the same structure as the rest and it the fact it's hand-drawn is incredibly impressive. It might seem simple but each image nails the visual style of medieval books. I love this concept and these books are amazing works of art if you ask me.
I LOVE the Lone Wolf series. Found a ton of them like 20 years ago in a store and played them all a dozen times.
This reminds me of a fantasy roleplaying game book I used to have when I was younger, it was called Wizard of Firetop Mountain, and you had to roll a pair of dice to progress, or combat enemies.
Never heard of this before. Wild, creative stuff! Thank you for introducing me to this.
That's the most unique thing I seen in a while! When I was a kid, there were books called "Book in which you are the hero" (Livre dans lequel vous êtes le héros), which apparents itself a bit with this concept. Tho, it was not PVP, and you actually had to read your way through the story, make choices... Which could be fatal to the story. It was fun.
This is an insane concept! Would really like to see a playthrough
Joe Dever's Highway Holocaust game books are amazing. I spent hours exploring his vison of a post-apocalyptic USA.
Well, I guess I need to add these to my wishlists...also don't forget Emerald Enchanter and Scarlet Sorcerer!
goodluck finding them T-T
@@calhoot3577 Need a reprint here!
As a computer science student I really like this concept, it's like if the book was the memory/program and you the player/processor. It also reminds me of a book a friend and I used in the elementary school's library, it was about a knight in a dungeon or something like that, the cover had a skeleton and the book was a couple inches thick, you needed to play with a couple of dice, pencil and paper.
I played this in college! I loved it. I had started a small cult for these types of games in my friend group.
This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen OR will ever see, period.
Highly suggest reading through Lone Wolf from Joe Dever. Had the full set as a kid and still remember the whole series.
His son just started releasing definitely versions expanded from his dad's notes
As a kid I could never find White Warlord, but I wanted to play this so bad! I actually had copies of the other two books in this series, where you play as fighter jet wizards - not a joke, seriously. One was called Emerald Enchanter... I think the other one was Scarlet Sorcerer. Played it all the time with my friends. The Emerald Enchanter looked somewhat Mexican on the cover of the book, so we started calling him Spanish Fly. True story!
This is such a cool idea Ben. I would totally buy this. I kinda wish someone would make a modern version as a D&D minigame or something. You could even do a scifi version with lazguns and vibroswords or lightsabers. I wonder how it would play with 3 or 4 people on a slightly bigger map?
3-4 players on a bigger map would probably require a lot of pages to account for all the variables.
could turn it into 2v2, where 2 players move together as a unit, each with different abilities. one controls the movement, the other could be focused on combat, or scouting abilities, to find the opponents. difficult, but could be done to minimize variables but add replayability.
I still have a 1 on 1 adventure game book "Dragon Wand of Krynn" that is almost identical to this. Looks like it was published in 1987. I also have three AD&D adventure gamebooks that are essentially choose your adventure but with stat sheets and dice.
When the TH-cam algorithm actually works it brings wonderful gems like this video.
You got a sub from me, congratulations on getting over 500k views in nearly 2 weeks more than your drawing video did in 5 years. Can't wait to see more of your content!
I remember being in 3rd grade and reading books that you the reader made choices on how the story turned out, and would tell you to turn to a specific page depending on which choice you make and each choice can lead you down a totally different story and ending. Loved them.
everyone is familiar with those books😂 ur acting like it’s some rare concept nobody understands
@@zachl9260 not sure your interpretation of that or how you're thinking that but ok lol 😆
@@Kvothe_The_Bloodless it’s called a choose your own path book and everyone knows what it is
@@zachl9260 yes I know what it is I'm just baffled at your continuous explanation of it. Touch some grass
@@zachl9260 every one??? Literally everyone you say??? Wow. That's collective knowledge on another level. Countries that don't have education or books or can't even read I'm sure know about this as well right. "Everyone knows" 👏
Pretty sure I'm never getting a copy now.🤣 I picked up White Warlord on a trip to Kmart with my mom...at the same trip I got Def Leppard's Hysteria. I would love to see a company put these as phone apps one day.
Ace of Aces also had a dungeon version with several different characters that all worked together. The way it worked was you exchange your character books but kept a card related to your character that had your moves.
I kinda feel a bit smarter when i know about something that Ben does not hahahaha. Yeah, those books are amazing, and so was Joe Dever, he will forever be missed. I highly recommend his gamebooks.
With laminated things, use wet erase, as dry erase ink will eventually bond with an stain the lamination.
Love this! Please do the Lone Wolf series next. Also, if you want to read a mysterious, atmospheric, immersive story-based puzzle book, read Maze by Christopher Phillips. Trust me, it's amazing.
Joe Dever is a genius, Lone Wolf and World of Lone Wolf was my favorite series as a kid. Tabletop but you didn't even need a dice (random number chart in the back of the book). So many good twists and turns fascinated me and I didn't even mind the few times I got taken out because it was an excuse to do it all over again. This doesn't surprise me, but sheesh Mr. Dever, your awesomeness deserves more love and attention, thanks Questing Beast for showing these off. There is Lone Wolf on Steam also.
Muito maneiro esse Dungeon crawler em um livro, lembra Migth & Magic.
As soon as I read the title I had an idea of what was going on, but even still it’s so damn cool that books like this exist. Every time I see one of these types of books it really impresses me
That is awesome. I love the randomization system for the bow.
"The book with a first person shooter inside."
Me: "Ugh, I hate it when people do this. Listen, just because a game is in first person doesn't make it an FPS, ok? You have to, you know... shoot?"
"We're at range 1, which is just outside melee range, and we could shoot bows at each other."
Me: "I MEAN YEAH OK SURE but the point of a shooter is to use your skill to hit your target. Not like whatever simple action system this thing uses."
"So you're going to turn to this page, the Bow Fire Grid."
Me: "....."
Really good video! You speak very clearly and present things well, and this was super interesting! My only regret is that you didn't at least briefly flip through the other book so we could see some of the art of the White Warlord. The illustrations in these things rule.
Reminds me of another series of books called "1 on 1". It was a similar idea but in more of a standard gamebook format. It was made by TSR so also had some D&D elements.
There's some nostalgia for real. Loved all of Joe Dever's stuff, very creative designs and stories. The Lone Wolf stuff is available on apps these days.
So cool! I've never had the opportunity to play D&D stuff, but this looks fun! I remember my grandma had this old electronic D&D game where you'd press buttons and put up little plastic walls
I was a fan of Joe Dever Lone Wolf game book series. And that book was made into a real video game but never got as popular as the book.
I had a similar book but it was planes dogfight where each player had a representation of the other plane from its own perspective and had to chose his next move to try to align it in its visor (both planes moved at the same time).
I appreciate you bringing attention back to this amazingly unique format.
I remember seeing a battletech variant of this. They had 6 books or so. Each one was a different mech. The twist was, that you were supposed to hand your book to your opponent, because your book contained the visuals of your own mech, which he of course was supposed to see.
In the early 1980's a friend of mine had Ace of Aces. We loved playing it. Also, we took to walking through our maneouvres so that we could better understand what was going on in the dogfight. I haven't played this fantasy one but in general, I miss those "choose your own adventure" style books.
I had some of these books growing up. I’d forgotten about them completely. This is amazing!!
What would be a perfect compliment is a reference bookmark that could also be moved up or down to track statuses (and keep your place in case you want to pause the game)
I had these as a kid.... these were the coolest adventure books around in the early 90s!
I found this entirely fascinating as someone who appreciates RPG mechanics. Pretty great.
Wow, what a blast from the past. My best friend through school had both of those sets (Combat Heroes and Ace of Aces). So much fun.
Over the Reich and Achtung Spitfire! are basically computer game versions of Ace of Aces that came out in the 90s, also loads of fun.
He also had a similar set that I can't for the life of me remember the name of. It was a PvPvE system where one player starts off as this OP dragon lord thing (I'm pretty sure called the Archebald or something), and the other player is a captive who has been released to be hunted down for sport. The captive gets a few free turns to make their escape while the other player uses the time to set traps, gear up and gloat. Then the chase is on, except the play area is significantly larger and more varied and there are environmental hazards and beasts that will attack both players. The goal for the captive is to escape the lands or find good gear and level up enough to kill the hunter, the Archebald has to track down the captive and kill them before they escape or get too powerful. IIRC it kind of plays similarly in that if the captive kills a monster then when the hunter reaches the same spot they're told to go to a different page that says the monster has already been slain, so they know they're on the right track. They're both also playable solo.
Then I found the sister set to that one in an old book store, that I also can't remember the name of. They were also PvPvE except the scope was a lot broader and the goal was for each player to negotiate with nearby societies and raise an army large enough to defeat the other player in an epic battle.