I’m probably not alone in growing up with those Choose Your Own Adventure books. You know the ones, white cover, fun illustration at the bottom. Names like The Cave of Time or By Balloon to the Sahara. You’d read the book, make some choices, end up dead, go back a few choices via your cheaty-torn paper bookmarks, and just enjoy the story.
While some board games have attempted to replicate the feel of these Choose Your Own Adventure books, (Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger is one) with middling success, today we are going to look at the first one I’ve seen to take the book format and turn it into more of a gaming experience.
What Lies Beneath is a solo dungeon crawler, choose your own adventure-style book published by Fervent Workshop. Designed by Chris Scaffidi and with art by the talented Jason Glover, this one seeks to set up where others have failed.
Gameplay Overview:
The main product here is the What Lies Beneath book, which is a 200(ish) page novel. All you need to supply are six, 6-sided dice, and a pencil. The back of the book has a character sheet to use, or if you are like me, you’ll print one off from the Fervent Games website.
The gameplay is actually fairly simple. After you create your character (six options here), you’ll get a set of stats represented by a number: Hit, Dex, Wit, and Vigor. Most are pretty straightforward, with Hit being your main strength-based attack and your vigor your health.
And then off on the adventure you go. Like most Choose Your Own Adventure Books, you’ll be making choices such as “take the left or the right path”, “hide or fight”, and “search or smash”. What sets this book apart is that many times you’ll need to make tests. That’s where the dice come in.
There are 3 main types of tests:
Hit: Roll a number of dice equal to your hit score and try to get equal to or above the target number on one of the dice.
Dex: Interestingly, the dexterity challenge is an actual dexterity test. You stack two dice on each other and then must flick a 3rd dice at the stack from a specific distance (based on the test number). The goal is to try and touch the bottom die of the stack without knocking the top die off. It’s actually a lot harder than it sounds. Each point of dex you have gives you an attempt. And for those that hate dexterity games, there are alternate rules to not have to do any flicking.
Wit: You roll a number of dice equal to the test value, and then need to get a consecutive run of numbers. Each point of Wit you have gives you the ability to manipulate a die (increase it by one, flip it over, or reroll it).
Other than that you’ll be finding items along the way that may come up in other decision points. The book takes about an hour or two to finish a run. Sometimes less if you end in a quick death. But according to the book, there are 13 unique endings where you live and dozens where you die. So even after you finish a run with a success, there is a reason to dive back in again for another attempt.
Game Experience:
I always approach these narrative games with a bit of caution as some people are great game designers, but not really much of a storyteller. I love Chronicles of Drunagor, it’s probably my favorite dungeon crawler. However, the story is ho-hum at best. But with a game like What Lies Beneath, this book is going to live or die by its narrative. Sure the gameplay helps keep things fun and interesting, but if the story sucks, well, you won’t want to spend much time in the world.
But I actually really enjoyed the story. I’ll save the spoilers, but you wake up in a dungeon with a weird affliction and you need to find your way out and then hunt down a cure. I was so immersed in the fate of my first character that I was actually a bit sad when the story ended. I was having a great time with him. He was a warrior who had cured his malady, found a sword and shield, and was kicking butt.
Since I beat the game on my first try, I was a bit concerned that the game/book was just too easy. Well never fear. My second character, an all-mighty wizard died before he even made it to daylight out of the first dungeon. My third character, a brave druid, actually made it out of the dungeon and tasted daylight, before being hunted down, recaptured, and summarily executed. Whelp. Time for a 4th.
Story aside, I also think the gameplay elements are great. They are simple enough that you can do them in a minute or two so they enhance the experience, not get in the way. I also appreciated how different each of the three tests was. I was actively trying to increase all my stats (yes you can level up your hero) just to give me more help in the tests I wasn’t good at. The dexterity tests are particularly rough until you get the flicking down. But I enjoyed it.
If I had a gripe with the book, it would probably be that the classes don’t feel all that different from each other (at least from my runs). They started with slightly different stats, but my wizard isn’t casting spells, the bard isn’t enchanting people with his music, and my berserker just had lots of extra vigor. It could be I just didn’t hit any sections where your actual class matters, but I would have liked to have more integration there. But that’s a small complaint in an otherwise stellar product.
Final Thoughts:
I was pleasantly delighted with What Lies Beneath. I had it in my review stack for a bit longer than I wanted because I just needed to find the time to sit down and start reading. But once I did, I had a hard time putting it down. The story is interesting, the mechanics fun, and overall the product just works great. I really hope that designer Chris Scaffidi is going to come out with other books because I love the game he’s created. As a solo dungeon crawler, it’s a blast to play and it feels really unique. For $12 for the printed book, or $6 for the PDF, it’s 100% worth it, even if you only play a few runs.
Final Score: 4.5 Stars – It takes the Choose Your Own Adventure books and elevates them to another level with some smooth gameplay.
Hits:
• Engaging story
• Lots of different endings
• Gameplay mechanics are smooth and don’t get in the way
Misses:
• Classes don’t feel like they affect the story much
