'Grail Quest. The Castle of Darkness' - return to fantasy game books'. Two Shelves of Gaming Episode 14

Welcome podcast listeners to another episode of Two Shelves of Gaming. As usual I felt a gentle internal pressure to get another episode out there, but as per normal the eternal question of what to talk about stumped me. Luckily I was contacted by a listener called Mark to who had heard about me from the Bedroom Battles podcast and answered a question I had from episode 12. Namely the title of a game book series I once owned in the 80s in which you could end up being killed in your dreams as you attempted to regain health points. The series was called 'Grail Quest' and was set in the era of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Mark had been lucky enough to pick one up at a charity book sale (Jammy git) It's different to Fighting Fantasy in that the passages can be longer, pages long in some cases, in which a rich story and colourful characters are revealed to the reader. Also the character you play isn't some muscle bound, armour clad and sword wielding warrior, but instead a simple farmer from the sticks. More country bumpkin than dungeon defiler. Plus the book is divided into definite waypoints and sections instead of being a flow of passages. Additionally - and this is the one of the things I didn't like first time around - the book has lots and lots of humour in it. The book doesn't take itself to seriously at all and even when you are killed it's all treated as a bit of a laugh. In either case getting killed is more an inconvenience to this game book series, something you can get around and even helps with subsequent attempts. So definitely a breed apart from FF - not saying either is better - just different. Now, I don't own a physical copy of the book, but I was able to download it via the rather good anna archive website (link below) Take a look as you may discover books you didn't know existed back in the day. Plus most of them are no longer in print so this may be the only way you'll see them. Thank goodness for the internet. A couple of technical points for this recording is that there was a lot of cleaning going on, so I had to pause and edit out sections where the loud jet engine noise of a Dyson Vacuum cleaner was in the background. I've tried to remove most it. Also I didn't get a chance to read the book in detail so had to review it in real time as it was on my computer, hence much sound of the mouse wheel as I scrolled up and down the pdf. Anyway, excuses over. Enjoy! Link to gamebooks: https://annarchive.com/hotu_gamebooks.html