Gamebook Pocket RPG Review

Slovakian publishers LL Studios wrote the book on RPGs. Literally.

Their debut effort, a game/book hybrid titled, Gamebook Pocket RPG, is available in both a digital and printed version. This is an important distinction for gamers to know, as I was only aware of the digital version going into this review.

Essentially what the publishers did was create a 100 page “book” that comes in a spiral binding. Each page is meant to portray a significant moment of gameplay. With large pixel-art illustrations on each page, full scenes are depicted, meant to mirror the look of a classic RPG. A large number in the bottom of the page notes your position in the book. You are prompted to choose your way through dungeons and forest areas by proceeding to the page number that coincides with that decision. This is the same concept used by the “choose your own adventure books” you read as a kid, which has seen a return to popularity as garden variety mobile apps in recent years.

I get Gamebook Pocket RPG, I do. It packs all of the staples of an RPG into a unique form for a simple and brief reading session. The decision to turn this book into a game (and I am reluctant to even use that word) is puzzling. Unlike a number of more ambitious projects that have implemented things like actual gameplay (Joe Deever’s excellent Lone Wolf series comes to mind), LL Studios has made little effort here to change any feature of the physical book for the game version. It is literally a page-by-page click-through of what you would get in the book. I would call Gamebook Pocket RPG a graphic novel before calling it a game. There is no real interaction, no sense of the player’s decision having any consequence.

At one point in the game I was in a hallway with three possible routes to take. I decided on right by tapping on the number 42, which would have been the page number to turn to in the physical version. The scene changed; I’m confronted by a skeleton, sword drawn high. Weaponless I stood there and braced for death. Nothing happened. I retreated to the previous hallway, this time I went up and found myself in an armory filled with enough battle axes and bows for a full RPG party, but the prompt on the screen has me take a sword. Two more taps of the screen and I’m back in the skeleton room. Another tap, he’s dead. All of this takes place in maybe 20 seconds.

During another harrowing skeleton conflict, the leader of the baddies, “Grr… Oh, you Rookie! Like clicking buttons? Bad cess to you, you slubberdegullian!” If I had any way to respond to him, or interact with the game in any meaningful way I would’ve said, ‘no. I do not like simply clicking buttons.’

The game does have a charm and humor to it at times, with japes at the over-used tropes of RPGs. The translation from Slovakian to English also leads to a few unintentional moments of humor or downright confusion. At one point I presented a skeleton skull to a group of guards blocking a path and they rejoiced and gave me permission to stand guard. I don’t know why I did this, but it was the only option available to me, which speaks to the linear nature of this game. Moments like these occurred randomly and instead of adding to any sense of a living world, they made it painstakingly clear to that Gamebook Pocket RPG is a game, or rather a half-baked attempt at one.

As a game version of a 100-page book, Gamebook Pocket RPG is a short game. The games description calls for “almost an hour of interactive fun,” but even that prediction is a bit gracious. My first tap-through of the game clocked in at around 15 minutes. My second, 5 minutes. Were this game free, I would be less inclined to harp on some of these issues, but the 2.99 price tag it comes with is impossible to justify.

Many who fault the RPG-genre are quick to mention its by-the-numbers approach to storytelling and game design. By harping on these tropes it is clear the creators of Gamebook RPG love the genre, but their quirky love letter to the genre would be better served in book form.