TSR, $2.50, ISBN 0-88038-252-X
Fantasy, 1985

You are a thief named Derek Shadowalker. Wait, shouldn’t that be “Shadowwalker”? Then again, given that you are born in the slums, spelling was probably not your parents’ strongest suit. So yes, you are a thief, which means you are free to loot, pillage, plunder… oh wait, Escape from Castle Quarras is a Super Endless Quest gamebooks aimed at kids, so scratch that. You may call yourself a thief, but you’re more of a defender of the downtrodden and what not.

King Kerral, the ruler of the kingdom of Quarras—your birthplace—was a benevolent ruler. Again, this begets the question as to why you were needed to defend the downtrodden when the king was a just man but… ugh. Back to Kerral, he was a just king, but no longer because he is now acting like a tyrannical monster oppressing his subjects. Naturally, you are back in town to notice firsthand the oppression taking place.

You, a master thief, best of the best, et cetera, are surprised by an old man sneaking up on you. Shut up, you’re playing a gamebook meant for kids, so you are dumb and therefore you shouldn’t question the logic of this gamebook. Anyway, the man is an old friend of yours, who tells you that something terrible has befallen Kerral. An evil wizard Kharseron, whatever will be, will be… ahem, the bugger has this thing called the Gem of Illystia, which he then uses to “corrupt” Kerral into the evil king he is now.

Hence, you now have a mission. Sneak into Castle Quarras, steal the gem and free the king from its malign influence, and then sell the gem for lots of gold. Who cares if the gem turned another fellow into the next genocidal Iuz-wannabe, right? Remember, this gamebook is for dumb kids to play, which means you are also a dumb kid now and you shouldn’t have the intellect to ask these bothersome questions. In fact, don’t even wonder which setting this gamebook is set in, because the names mentioned so far were not names of any locale found in Faerun, Greyhawk, and other Dungeons & Dragons settings.

Since this is an entry in a gamebook line that wants you to feel like a big-time tabletop RPG player, you get to assign your own character’s stats, pick some predetermined special items to take along with you, et cetera. The usual, in other words.

This campaign is certainly the closest entry so far in this line to resemble a “real” gamebook such as those in the Fighting Fantasy line, although fortunately this one is far better written than a typical gamebook by Ian Livingstone. This is because your choices feel like they really do matter here, as there are consequences as well as rewards attached to the decisions you make. The selection of items you are given is alright too, as each item has its uses. Of course, whether you find a certain item useful will depend on the choices you make, and that can be in some ways random. That’s how gamebooks roll, though.

Sure, there are some boo-boos here, like how the campaign sometimes forgets that it gave you a choice earlier and assumed that you just did whatever Douglas Niles had in mind for you in his script, but given how poorly edited the narrative present in this gamebook is, it’s very likely you can’t ask for anything more. Paragraphs feel disjointed often, with details introduced in an out of sequence order, so much so that it’s really not surprising if no one had checked for continuity during the production stage.

There are quite a number of bad endings, as well as three good ones. The ending that saw you getting tempted by the gem to become the new tyrant is actually the coolest ending of the bunch, but naturally, dumb kids can’t be allowed to get away with doing bad things, so that ending also had you getting killed by an assassin a few years into your reign. Still, that’s a better ending than the good ones, because you know King Kerras is going to remember what he did when he was under the influence of the gem and jump off a balcony as a result.

Anyway, this one is a pretty alright campaign, although the occasional technical boo-boos, janky narrative, and anticlimactic good endings may leave you wondering whether there may be more enjoyable activities that you could have spent your time on. Still, this one is probably the most coherent and structurally sound entry in this series so far—yes, even with its own share of structural issues—so this accomplishment should probably count for something…. what that something is.