Into the Dungeon: A Choose-Your-Own-Path Book

Super fun pick your own adventure game book! Few different endings.

This book was fun for the first few tries but starts to get repetitive. You can have a different experience each time but the start of the adventure is always the same and you’ll start to recognize pathways very quickly and easily.

At only 100 pages, and no sections, this is a brief campaign through a twisting castle worn down by time. While it relies on many CYOA and D&D tropes, they are nicely implemented and still fun to explore. The ending is refreshing in how it both gives a narrative arc for a character when conditions are met while giving a longer epilogue based on treasure acquired. I only wish both the beginning reason for exploring and ending were expanded a bit further to give this some grounding.This is less a choose-your-own-path book, then a "I-hope-I have-the-right-character" book, as the majority of choices are determined by your arbitrary class. Character type and inventory act as ways the book removes choice from the user, with 70% of interactions being out of one's control. While on paper this sounds like an incentive to replay, the reality is it feels arbitrary.The abandoned bat and trapped king side stories are especially well handled, telegraphing enough information to make the choice's made substantial. While we know killing the bat will end badly, the drawing of the family makes you feel like trash. With the king, the depth of this section and how many ways it can play out is the highlight. What's interesting is that both are nearly all choice-based. When the book trusts the reader to make their own decisions they have more fun.Overall, this is a lighthearted way to role play in a quick and digestible form.Bonus points: the fact that the cover is actually a map of the entire book is actually brilliant. It is a small detail that caps off the ending on a positive note!

Personally I don't think this choose your own adventure book holds up to its price point. It's a fun little activity for kids, teens, or young adults who still enjoy these sorts of things. But it's really short, I bought this as a gift for my little cousin and he finished it within about 30 minutes. He's twelve. I even picked it up and gave it a go and it took only an hour for me to read through and try out every single pathway the book/game would allow. On top of this the writing isn't very gripping, even for a children's book. It felt very much rushed and slapped together, especially the ending, without giving anything away it just completely ends abruptly without much of even a closing statement. Very lazy! The plus side is its for both boys and girls, there are characters you can choose to play as or create your own and the game walks you through that as well, and it might be a hit to get your young ones into d&d style games, but I just can't recommend this product for the price. It was a fun idea but knowing what I do now I probably wouldn't have bought this.

I loved choose your own adventure books as a kid, and this book takes that genre and improves it tenfold. The ability to track your stats, items, and health make this a more engaging narrative.The book comes with 4 pre-set characters and instructions to build your own. I've already played as each of the 4, and had drastically different experiences with only a fraction of the same pages in each character's adventure.I enjoy calculating my treasure and score at the end of the adventure, and the feats bingo card means that even a path that leads to death (or worse!) can still feel like an accomplishment.I still don't think I've covered half of the pages in the book after 4 dungeon delves.For parents, I have yet to encounter anything in the book that I would not feel comfortable having my sons read (ages 8 and 11). I also like that the author is queer friendly, meaning that the story does not impose gender stereotypes. The 4 premade characters could identify as any gender, and the story line does not involve any awkward descriptions or interactions that depend on one gender or another.The artwork is simple but fun and helps the reader imagine the monstrous, cute, and weird characters that your adventurers will meet along the way. My only regret is that there is no sequel.

Writing for reading level is OK. Plot is nothing to write home about. Not sure if the author ever picked up a Joe Dever book, but he could learn some principals on game design, around creating characters and interactive books like this. Roll 1d6 for each stat for character creation is horrible idea. I had my kiddo roll and assign stats, so he felt like he was playing a real RPG. I tweaked the way the book read with my kids alos, I had them roll a d6 vs their stat to see if they passed/failed a dialogue check. Read to much better sense of feeling like your playing an introduction to dungeon crawling that sure, dumb luck of whatever stats you rolled.After one play through, my kids didn't have the urge to play again.

Favorite feature: I love how accessible this gamebook is. It's just fun to play. It feels like an experience that has been crafted with care.Other strengths: Each section contains good artwork on A5 pages. Several artists contributed to the project, but at no point do the offerings feel mishmashed. There's a surprising amount of replayability due to multiple characters, each with a unique victory condition, achievements to unlock, and a scoring system. The diceless gameplay system works well given the breezy, pick up and play nature of the outing. I also love the whimsical tone of this gamebook, which is rarer than it should be in the medium.Drawbacks: The gamebook is short, sub 100 sections to be precise, and the story is insubstantial, but for this kind of pure dungeon crawl, that works to its advantage.Story: 3Art: 4Gameplay: 4Sense of adventure: 4Overall: ✏️✏️✏️✏️Highly recommended

Said he had fun with it but wished it had deeper mechanics

Ok nothing special maybe a bit short.

Se me hizo un poco corta la aventura en las dos veces que he jugado, pero si pones un poco de música de ambiente mientras juegas es muy amena la experiencia.

Nice book. My son love it very much

Although this is a small book (A5 size), its actually a great little choose-your-own-adventure style book! I've read through about 7 times now, choosing different options each time and getting different endings each time - and there still more choices left to choose. For those who love D&D but want a short RPG game on the go, this is a great option.

Me agrado mucho, está muy bonito