Temple of Terror - Final Thoughts

Covers by Chris Achilleos (Puffin edition) and
Martin McKenna (Wizard edition)

When Temple of Terror was released in 1985, the series was three years old. This isn't a particularly long stretch, but in that time Ian Livingstone produced seven different gamebooks (on top of his editorial duties for White Dwarf and whatever other things he was working on).  This is a prodigious amount of work, so it's no surprise that Temple of Terror doesn't quite feel as fresh as his earlier books.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Livingstone's obviously enjoying bringing back characters and places from previous instalments (Yaztromo and Port Blacksand chief among them), and his knack for devious tricks and traps is not yet exhausted. From a personal perspective, I've always enjoyed the familiarity of Ian's work, and consider it the core identity and voice of the series.

Some of it's a little too familiar though.  The plot, with it's dungeon treasure hunt culminating in a battle against an evil wizard, is probably the most over-used in the series (and possibly the most over-used in gamebooks in general). It was practically the plot of the first book: just replace the warlock Zagor with Malbordus and the treasure chest keys with some dragon statuettes, garnish it with some Egyptian trappings, and you're done. The dungeon setting that comprises the bulk of the adventure isn't remarkably different from Ian's past dungeon delves, and suffers in comparison to his more inspired works such as Deathtrap Dungeon.  The desert setting is novel, but is really only a short stretch of the adventure.

There's an attempt to liven things up by giving the player the ability to cast spells, but it all feels a bit half-hearted. Most of the spells are only useful in two or three situations, and one of them never even comes up as an option. It's a far cry from Citadel of Chaos and the Sorcery! epic, where the spell-casting was a central element. The end battle of the book is technically wizard vs. wizard, but you wouldn't know it, as it pretty much comes down to a standard combat. It all feels like a missed opportunity.

The evil wizard in question, one Malbordus, gets a great backstory that's full of promise. He gets very little to do in the adventure itself though, and never displays much in the way of personality. The same goes for the priestess Leesha, who serves as a sort of sub-boss towards the end. She gets even less backstory and personality than Malbordus, and their connection (if they even have one) is never made clear.

To be honest the most memorable villain of the book, and its most inspired element, is the Messenger of Death, a horrific assassin sent by Malbordus to stalk the player. Its method of killing - a scavenger hunt where the player dies if they uncover all five letters of the word DEATH - is absurdly inefficient, but that hardly matters when you see the illustration with its oozing mouth and eye-sockets. As far as I'm concerned FF is at its best when mentally traumatising young children, and the Messenger of Death gets an A+ in that category.

In terms of design, this is very much an Ian Livingstone book with all the flaws that entails: a very linear path to victory with multiple unavoidable battles against high-Skill opponents. The fight with the Giant Sandworm is particularly annoying, especially because it couples that high Skill with a ridiculously high Stamina: even if you're good enough to beat it the fight is going to last for ages, and there's no way around it.

Reading over what I've written so far, I feel like I've been overly negative (a trait I've been accused of in real life my many). It's not a bad gamebook, but it does come across a bit like Ian Livingstone on autopilot, or more charitably like Ian has already used up his best ideas on earlier books. There's a lot to complain about when you break Ian's work down and analyse the structure and design, and the complaints I make have been pretty consistent across his books. Where he shines is in setting and details, with tricks and traps and monsters, and the sort of just-macabre-enough elements that get a 10-year-old's juices flowing. Those elements aren't shining quite as brightly here as they were in books like City of Thieves and Deathtrap Dungeon, but there's just enough of the old magic to make Temple of Terror worth a read, Even on autopilot, Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy books are still pretty good.

SPELL ANALYSIS

I went through the spells in Sorcery! to figure out which are the most useful, so I thought I might as well do the same for this book.  After all, with only ten spells and one book it's a much less daunting task.

Magic Arrow:

• Kills the Harpy
• Wounds the Pterodactyl
• Kills all three Needle Flies (albeit at a whopping cost of 6 Stamina)

Create Water:

• On the path through Port Blacksand, allows you to avoid Stamina loss due to thirst on two occasions.
• On the overland path, allows you to avoid Stamina loss due to thirst on three occasions.

Fire:

• Allows you to avoid the Basilisk.
• Negates Stamina loss due to the cold desert night.
• Lets you escape from the crushing ceiling in the Night Horror's room.

Read Symbols:

• Warns you about the demon of the beach.
• Allows you to read a cursed parchment, incurring a large Luck penalty.
• Warns you not to drink from the pool.
• In a roundabout way, if you've translated the "do not drink" sign it also lets you translate the signs on the sun and moon doors, which can help you avoid certain death.

Detect Trap:

• Warns you about the pit in the Rat Men lair.
• Warns you about the crossbow trap in the dark tunnel.

Light:

• Lets you avoid the crossbow trap in the dark tunnel.
• Lets you avoid the blade trap in the dark room, but at the cost of revealing a letter left by the Messenger of Death.

Open Door:

• Opens the door into Vatos, letting you avoid the Serpent Guard.
• Opens the door to the room with the empty caskets.
• Opens the door to the room with the bronze head that rewards you for answering a question.
• Helps you to escape from the crushing ceiling in the Night Horror's room 

Creature Sleep:

• Puts the Lizard Man to sleep.
• Puts the Disciples to sleep.

Jump:

• Allows you to jump the walls of Vatos, and avoid the Serpent Guard.
• Allows you to jump the pit after the Giant Centipede's room.

Language:

• This spell is not used even once. The option to use it never even comes up.

COOL STUFF I MISSED

Given how long and linear this book is, and the number of times I replayed it, I don't think I missed much at all.

MISTAKES AND RED HERRINGS

The only significant error in Temple of Terror involves the hammer-wielding stone statue, that animates as a Stone Golem if you pass it on the wrong side.  When you first see it, it's described as being made out of bronze. This would be a trivial mistake, except that the dying warrior you encounter shortly beforehand warns you to "beware the shadow of the stone".  I believe that warning is about the Stone Golem, but it's pretty useless when the thing it's warning you about isn't even described correctly.

There are a bunch of items that never get used.  From Abjul's stock, the Sealing-Wax, Ivory Beetle Charm, Silver Mirror, Ebony Facemask and Bone Flute are all worthless.  The Monkey's Tail that you find after defeating the Rat Men serves no purpose, which is fairly predictable.  The Clay Goblet has no use, and neither does the Knife you take from the Mutant Orc.  The one that's most irritating, though, is the Lantern.  The instructions say you have one, but whenever it would come in handy the book acts as though you're not carrying any kind of light source.  No doubt the instructions are in error here, and you're probably not supposed to have a lantern with you.

BEST DEATH

There are 24 instant death passages in Temple of Terror, and although some of them are satisfyingly gruesome there are few that are genuinely inspired.  I've gone with the Messenger of Death, partially because it's one of the best aspects of the book, but also because this death is almost impossible to get.  

S.T.A.M.I.N.A. RATING

Story & Setting: The plot involving Malbordus is standard FF fare, and the treasure hunt nature of things is already well-worn territory for the series. The setting, a ruined desert city occupied by a religious cult, had the potential to be great, but in practice it amounts to little more than another Ian Livingstone dungeon crawl. That's not necessarily a bad thing - I do love me some Livingstone - but it's hard to rate it all that highly. Rating: 3 out of 7.

Toughness: For most of the adventure Livingstone gets it about right, but the path to victory is very narrow, and I have to mark it down for that damn unavoidable Giant Sandworm fight. Rating: 3 out of 7.

Aesthetics: The writing here has Ian's usual style, which is just about atmospheric enough to get by. The original cover is great, but the interior illustrations by Bill Houston are a little patchy. Some, like the Messenger of Death, are all time greats, but there are others I'm not so fond of (although I do like that they have an appropriately gritty texture, almost like sand).  Rating: 4 out of 7.

Mechanics: Ian, as usual, doesn't rock the boat too much here, and sticks with the tried-and-true FF basics. He does try to liven things up a bit by letting you cast spells, but they don't get used nearly enough. It's tempting to knock a point off for having a spell that never gets used, but it's really not a big enough deal. Rating: 4 out of 7.

Innovation & Influence: The desert setting is novel, but other than that pretty much everything this book is doing has been done better somewhere else. Rating: 2 out of 7.

NPCs & Monsters: There are quite a number of excellent monsters to be found in this book, with the Messenger of Death being chief among them. Where Temple of Terror really falls down, though, is with its villains. The religious cult led by the priestess Leesha is intriguing, but never gets delved into much at all. Malbordus gets a great introduction, but the confrontation with him is so perfunctory that he ends up with almost no character at all.  Rating: 3 out of 7.

Amusement: This book is about as middle-of-the-road FF as it gets, but I happen to enjoy that sort of thing. Temple of Terror has never been a particular favourite, but it gets the job done well enough. Take out the Sandworm and I would have rated it a little higher. Rating: 3 out of 7.

Bonus Points: No bonus points for Temple of Terror.

The above scores total 22, for a S.T.A.M.I.N.A. Rating of 44. That puts it 18th out of the 23 adventures I've rated so far: of the main series, only Starship Traveller and Space Assassin are below it.  That's perhaps a little unfair, as it's not a bad adventure at all, but it's part of the nature of ratings like this for mediocrity to rate lower the further in you get.

NEXT: The next post will be an Exploring Titan where I dig into Temple of Terror's details (assuming I remember them after my long hiatus), and then it's on to Warlock #5.