Gamebook Quickstart Guide

Gamebooks are easy and fun, playing them is not much more complicated than reading a book. But there are a few things you may want to know if you have never read a gamebook before.

Lets get started! Once you open the app and watch the intro video, you will find yourself in the main menu.

The main menu has lots of fun things to see and do. For now just tap on the “Read Gamebook” link. This will take you to the book cover.
Tap the book cover and you will be presented with the three main difficulty settings for the game: Classic, Bookworm and Novice. To flip to the next page either tap the right side of the screen, or simply swipe from right to left, just like turning a page in a real book.

Choose a difficulty setting by tapping the green button next to them on the last page. Once you choose a difficulty, you will get the chance to roll your character stats.

First thing to do is to tap the name and put in a name for your new character. After that, just tap the sheet that popped up in the middle of the screen and your dice will be thrown out onto the table. You can shake the device to shake the dice. Once the dice come to a stop, your various stats will be calculated (you roll different numbers of dice for different difficulty settings)

Your two main stats are your vitality, which is how much life you have, and your fitness, which is used to determine how well you can perform certain physical feats.

Once your character is rolled, you are ready to begin the adventure!

Just flip the pages as you would if you were reading a book, and enjoy the story. After a few pages, you will be presented with a choice.

Select what you would like to do, and continue reading. Sometimes you will see choices that are shown with a red button that are greyed out. Depending on the choices you have made before, some things may not be available to you later on. However, the choices themselves often contain clues you can use for your next read through.

Occasionally, you will come to a special link like a fitness link, or a fight link. You wont be able to move past your current section until you roll the dice to see how the fitness check or fight comes out.

Once you have sorted out the rolling, one of the links will be available to take, depending on the outcome. During combat, you can also do fitness checks to try and hit your enemy harder, and you can drink healing potions if your vitality is getting low.

Finally, if you tap in the middle of the screen, or make an upward swipe gesture, then you will see some new icons at the bottom of the screen as well as your current vitality and fitness.

The book will return you to the main menu, the gear will open an option panel that lets you change the look and feel of the app. For instance you can change the font and the font size, among other things.

Lastly, the backpack will open your character inventory sheet. The inventory sheet keeps track of everything you have picked up, as well as everything you have discovered. So if you discovered a clue, it would show up under the ‘Knowledge’ section in your inventory. As your quest progresses, your inventory will grow, simply slide the inventory sheet up to see everything that is on it.

You can dismiss the inventory by swiping left to right, flicking it off the screen, or by simply tapping somewhere outside of the inventory. If you are on an iPhone or iPod touch, then you can simply hit the ‘Back’ button to return to the story.

At the bottom of the inventory sheet are your bookmarks. You only get a certain number of bookmarks depending on which difficulty you chose in the beginning. From the inventory you cal place a bookmark by tapping the bookmark icon, and you can go back to a previously placed bookmark by tapping the link next to it.

Once you place a bookmark it cannot be moved, but you can use it over and over again. When you are presented with a tough decision, or a fearsome foe, it is a good idea to place a bookmark so that you can come back and try again if it all goes bad!

That should be enough to get you started on your first Gamebook Adventure!