Lone Wolf is a series of Gamebooks or Choose Your Own Adventure novels spanning as far back at the 1980s. In them the reader plays a character named Lone Wolf, last of an ancient order of warrior monks battling an ancient enemy, journeying through a medieval fantasy world stuffed with choices to test their wits and courage. I always found Lone Wolf preferable to the Fighting Fantasy series due to continuity reasons, as stats and items carry across adventures to create a real feeling of progression. Gaming loves choice and progression so a crossover between mediums only seems natural.
Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf HD Remastered doesn’t stray far from its origins. The majority of playtime is spent turning digital pages of an entirely new book written by author Joe Dever himself. One could call it an interactive novel with a combat system bolted on if inclined to quibble over classifications, but let’s not tread down that road. For all intents and purposes this game is an official Lone Wolf novel, made for iOS and ported onto PC. This partially means there’s not a lot of interest in the main menu aside from the appreciable option to switch between fonts, because a legend isn’t worth telling unless it’s written in ancient Elvish lettering. (…)
Turning the book’s pages reveals beautiful artwork, complimented by music that captures that epic fantasy feel and conveys the character’s sense of isolation, taking advantage of the chosen medium by introducing the world of Lone Wolf through new senses. A codex has unlockable entries that help flesh stuff out further for those wondering what a Giak is or are interested in the lore.
It’s not long before Lone Wolf presents a multiple choice event, the first of many that can lead to advantages in combat, hidden loot, or a sticky death. Tempting as it might be to use the same type of solution to buff up the related attributes and build a specific playstyle, not playing smart purposely or otherwise often gets punished. All the attributes have a variety of equally important uses anyway, so it’s perhaps better to build a playstyle around items and combat skills rather than attributes. (…)
