Home
Reviews
Goblin Bane
March 1, 2002
Handheld devices, while originally conceived as personal organizers, have evolved into much more. One of those new functions is ebook reading, and it has taken the platform with a vengeance. It’s convenient to store multiple books on one device, and the ability to read anywhere, anytime without having to have a hard copy of a book is pure joy to many. Which is why we’ve seen several content providers pop up in recent times, selling everything from short stories to current bestsellers. Goblin Bane represents a new type of ebook, one very well suited to the Palm OS platform. Instead of passively reading the story to the end, we are invited to make decisions along the way that will affect the character and the story. And instead of having to constantly flip pages back and forth, as with those old Choose Your Own Adventure books, all of the choices in an interactive ebook are hyperlinked. Simply tap on the option you want to choose and you are instantly taken to the correct area to continue the story.
As in the case of Goblin Bane, when goblins attack a small village and destroy all of its inhabitants, you take on his role. Do you go to a nearby village for help? Do you go after the attackers by yourself? DO you stop to gather provisions and weapons for the journey? It’s all up to you— make the right choice and you are rewarded by a continuation of the story. Make the wrong choice, and you’ll meet an untimely death and will have to start over. Thank goodness for a great save system though— instead of having to worry about saving your progress, which would take away from the flow of the story, you don’t have to do a thing. If you do make a wrong choice, you will be taken back to a list of the major crossroads in the story you have already completed. Just pick the last one and you’ll be very close to where you were last— and hopefully you’ll make a better decision the second time around.
I’m really enjoying Goblin Bane. It’s fun to feel like I’m part of the story, and the color photos scattered throughout the book also enhance the experience. Hopefully we’ll see several more of these types of books in the future— they take an old concept and improve it greatly by hyperlinking the decision points, adding color pictures, and making the whole thing easily portable by allowing me to stash it in my Palm OS device (it takes up 345K of memory). You can check it out for yourself with a free demo, or you can purchase Goblin Bane for $9.99 at the Interactive E Books web site.
PocketGoddess rating for Goblin Bane: 
