I was delighted to read the first review of the print version of my gamebook, The Darkened Son, on Amazon by Adam Mitchell.
You can read the review on Amazon, and as it made my day, I will post it here too, as follows:
Davie’s Choose your own path book, has a foot in several camps, historic fiction, cosmic horror, and old school horror akin to that of the 30’s and 40’s. He combines all of these in a way that forms a riveting read that will easily steal an hour of your life away.
The books pacing is great, with NPC’s that seem well rounded for a book of this length (more on the books length later), it also brings a slow burn style horror vibe that grows as you look into it more. The almost Lovecraftian tone of the plot stays with you and fills in the holes that the retro horror vibes leave out. Again this is done well and is a really high bar on how a short pick your path style book can bring you a scare without leaning on tropes and cliches’. The tonal beats this book puts on the page is for me at least in keeping with the era of the story the book is set in in, this isn’t always an easy thing to do in the age of fast paced plots and over complicated arcs.
However this book is a double edged coin, what it does well it does really well. But it comes at a cost, the books length, for me personally there was enough material and enough ‘read between the lines’ content to build on what the book contains and Davie in my opinion could have easily doubled up the length of the book and with it add a even deeper level of pace and in book lore, which would have really made this book something special. Again this is just my opinion, all in all a great book and i cant wait to review any more the author has.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 March 2023
My thanks to Adam, who runs the Facebook group Man With Kids Gamebook & RPG Reviews.
