What if a wall monster did eat a dungeoneer?

HStorm

Yes, that's the first book, simply called Knightmare (unofficial sub-title Can You Beat The Challenge? - answer being undoubtedly yes, as the games at the end of the first book are incredibly linear and easy). It was published by Corgi in 1988.

The other books in the original Corgi series are Knightmare: The Labyrinths Of Fear, (a spectacularly-misnamed book as it's largely set in a forest, but the game at the end of the book is vastly more difficult and better written than in the first), Knightmare: Fortress Of Assassins and Knightmare: The Sorcerer's Isle. The stories were set entirely in the thirteenth century and were a series chronicling Treguard's adventures.

There were three more books released to coincide with the later seasons, published by Yearling, and were visibly aimed at younger readers. The main stories told in them were more TV-related, especially with a strong focus on the links between the world of Knightmare and the world of the twentieth century, which was never even referred to in the Corgi books. These three books were called Knightmare: The Forbidden Gate, Knightmare: The Dragon's Lair, and Knightmare: Lord Fear's Domain.

All seven books were written by IF veteran, Dave Morris.

All of these books pop up from time to time on eBay and on Amazon Marketplace. I recommend the first four far more than the three Yearling titles.

ETA: http://www.gamebooks.org/show_series.php?id=213&PHPSESSID=eeb7f345c91e480b1f8416917d82cb6b

knightmaredave

itd would be veeey nasty if a wall monster did eat a dungeoneer

I was going to say Akash and friends (always a good quest to watch if you're down in the dumps and need a laugh) probably did fail 3 times but he next TEANA WEREN't there so they gotg anoyher chance maybe?

Velvet

itd would be veeey nasty if a wall monster did eat a dungeoneer

I was going to say Akash and friends (always a good quest to watch if you're down in the dumps and need a laugh) probably did fail 3 times but he next TEANA WEREN't there so they gotg anoyher chance maybe?

I dare say that no matter how crap a team were, they would have felt short-changed if they'd failed at such an early stage. So I can quite believe that Akash & Co. were given a reprieve.

I suspect also that the Knightmare filming team wanted to get each team's death in the first shot. Imagine if you'd come all the way from wherever and got your dungeoneer killed so early. Wouldn't you feel like crying? If one of the team started bawling their eyes out, I doubt the 13th-century Treguard would be soft enough to pity them without going truly OOC, and that wouldn't do for the small screen.

So I think, to make sure the kids didn't get too upset by the dungeoneer's death and the unfairness of it all ending so early, they were guaranteed to get past the early guardians.

Fidjit

itd would be veeey nasty if a wall monster did eat a dungeoneer

I was going to say Akash and friends (always a good quest to watch if you're down in the dumps and need a laugh) probably did fail 3 times but he next TEANA WEREN't there so they gotg anoyher chance maybe?

Or you are bored and you need something to waste the time away with.

Drassil

A Team is foolish enough to get all three of Golgarach's questions wrong, making a mess of their quest, and forcing the wall monster make good on his promise to feed on the Dungeoneer. As he is about to do so, the entire cast of Knightmare appears, standing in a line, and sings:

'Feed the wall

Let him know it's quest mess time

Feed the wall

Let him know it's quest mess time...'

It never happened, but did give rise to a full song parody that was later recorded by Knightmare fans.

Here are some posts from an old topic called 'Deaths you'd like to have seen...'

A death by one of the early (Olgarth/Granitas) wall monsters would be interesting. In actuality, they'd probably just say something like "None is the score, so I feed on you!" and have the lifeforce appear, but I've always liked the idea of laser beams shooting out the monster's eyes, frying the dungeoneer to a crisp...

[Sadly the image is no longer there, but perhaps Billy will upload it again, if and when he reads this.]

Personally, I'd hope for a more literal and visual interpretation of "Feed on you", maybe involving a giant tongue coming out of their moth and them consuming the dungeoneer... But it's a death I'd have liked to see.

At least one of the blockers was given a chance...

Igneous should have eaten Akash, by all rights. Although he'd have been more of a mid-morning snack than a whole meal.

In the second KM gamebook, Granitas makes it clear how he will respond to an incorrect answer from the adventurer:

'Listen to my conundrum,' rumbles the Wall Monster. 'And listen well - for if you answer wrongly, I'll grind your bones in my stone jaws.'

If the adventurer isn't as wrong as he/she could be:

Granitas snaps viciously at you as you try to get through the door. His chisel-like teeth seize your leg and you scream in pain. Lose one Life Force grade. If you are still alive, you manage to find the strength to break free and race out the door.

But if the adventurer is completely wrong:

Granitas draws in his breath and you are sucked across the chamber like a leaf in a gale. The next instant you are crushed between teeth of stone, and your adventure comes to an abrupt and sticky end.

Granitas feeds on erroneous adventurers in each of the first 3 gamebooks, but the above extracts are as graphic as it gets.

chrysalis

when a skull-haunting hit the player and they lost life force, did this have any real impact in future rooms and the life force? or was it just to make the game seem more exciting.

Gizensha

Well, as I recall from watching it, the main difference was when the next bit of food would be found. The life-force clock seemed to be there to motivate the dungeoneer to keep moving, like the hunger in some videogames of the same era (Rogue, for example), but unlike those videogames wasn't designed to kill, because that would have been a really naff ending.

Of course, in some cases the extra food items were placed in positions that required risk taking to get, so, in a way I suppose it did, although unless anyone died while acquiring food I'm not sure said effect could be described as having 'real' impact.

As for a description of the 'sucked in by Granitas' in the gamebook - I guess that would have been doable in the first few seasons. Freeze frame of the dungeoneer, editing effect of him or her spinning and shrinking into the open mouth of the wall monster, Skull animation appearing as the mouth closed...

...Or cut to the snake stomach room for the life force to accelleratedly run out for less implied gore.

Fidjit

If a dungeoneer got eaten it would have been like a scene from Ross' quest. Either they get sucked into the wall monsters mouth or into its stomach where they're slowly digested...

Akash and co. scored themselves a "Got out of Jail Free" card didn't they. But what I don't understand is how they got a Truth spell for that situation? Did the producers film the scene before getting the spell or was it just pure luck? $:-\$

HStorm

Akash and co. scored themselves a "Got out of Jail Free" card didn't they. But what I don't understand is how they got a Truth spell for that situation? Did the producers film the scene before getting the spell or was it just pure luck? $:-\$

As I said in Reply #1 above, that's the story that Tim Child revealed to some KM fans away from the Internet (although he has never confirmed it publicly, so we can't be 100% sure). For certain, the TRUTH spell does seem very generic, and as you say, it therefore seems highly suspicious that it 'just happened' to wind up with the only ever team to fail a wall monster's riddle challenge...

Billy

Here are some posts from an old topic called 'Deaths you'd like to have seen...'

A death by one of the early (Olgarth/Granitas) wall monsters would be interesting. In actuality, they'd probably just say something like "None is the score, so I feed on you!" and have the lifeforce appear, but I've always liked the idea of laser beams shooting out the monster's eyes, frying the dungeoneer to a crisp...

[Sadly the image is no longer there, but perhaps Billy will upload it again, if and when he reads this.]

I'd forgotten about that image!

http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wallmonsterdeathbd7.jpg

I really think though it would have been pretty unimpressive. Imagine if the Dreadnaught had never had a death, we'd be all thinking "Wow, I bet they had this brilliant CGI sequence of it taking off all the dungeoneers limbs!!". And, erm, it didn't.

Fidjit

What if a wall monster did eat a dungeoneer?

It would be a jolly rotten shame!

Naitch

Hi all!

Part of me would have liked to have seen a Dungeoneer get eaten by a Wall Monster.

I remember in series 4 (I think!) Chris got eaten by a Blocker for not having the correct password.

Maybe it would have looked something liked that.

I doubt they would have animated an eating scene.

Though, it would have been cool to see Granitas or whoever spit out the bones...

Fidjit

Though, it would have been cool to see Granitas or whoever spit out the bones...

Chewing through clothes, a spongy helmet a leather handbag! Its like eating a shell on prawn!

Then spit out the bones after that! I suppose its kind of like eating fish! You get nearly bugger all out of the blasted thing, after bones and skin...

(Anyway,) I suppose it could have worked like the cavern wraith (Obviously not shimmering towards you but) it would drain your life force at a much faster rate...