ZX SPECTRUM EDITIONS: PROJECT AON

Joe Dever's series began with Flight from the Dark in 1984. These editions are built from the Project Aon releases of the books and are distributed under the Project Aon License.

In the same years that Lone Wolf topped the gamebook shelves, the Spectrum was where a generation met the text adventure, and a gamebook was a text adventure you played with a pencil. Adventures on the Spectrum told abridged stories, squeezed into the machine. Lone Wolf itself was adapted that way: the 1984 game of Flight from the Dark was abridged. The dream was an adventure game with a story as rich as Lone Wolf's. These editions make good on that dream: the complete books, playable on the computer of their era.

Four builds cover a whole Spectrum family today:

• A 48K tape edition that runs on the original 1982 hardware, streaming sections from tape as you play
• A 128K tape edition with far fewer tape loads
• A +3 disk edition with no tape handling and a route back to the main menu
• A ZX Spectrum Next edition with colour illustrations, a save game option, and an optional Iron Man mode that disallows saving

Further books will follow here as they are completed.

DOWNLOADS

Note: By playing or downloading these ZX Spectrum editions, you certify that you have read and understood the Project Aon License and that you agree to be bound by its terms (especially the prohibition against redistributing the Project Aon editions, which applies equally to these ZX Spectrum editions). If you cannot agree to these terms, please refrain from playing or downloading them.

Lone Wolf

Flight from the Dark · Kai series · book 1 · 350 sections

PLAY ONLINE

GAMEPLAY TIPS

The book's section number is shown at every location, so you can read along with the online book as you play. The book shows choices the game keeps hidden from you, so reading along gives you clues to where the paths diverge and what you might have missed. Continue your adventure with definitive editions in print.

The game follows exactly the same rules as the book, and handles the story progression in ways a gamebook couldn't. The one visible difference: where the book asks you to pick a number from the Random Number Table, the game rolls for you, invisibly. If a choice lands you somewhere unexpected, that was fate's roll at work, not a wrong turn.

A few things worth knowing before your first adventure:

• Items are not picked up automatically. When a section offers a weapon, gold or a meal, open the Action Chart (A) and use the ground picker (P) to take it. The ground clears when you move on.
• Weapons have a page of their own. They are not stored with the other items in your Backpack: press W on the Action Chart to see your two weapon slots.
• Only two weapons can be carried at a time. With both slots full, picking up another weapon simply does nothing — drop one first (D on the Weapons page), then take the new one from the ground.
• Choices respond only on the last page of a section if the text spans multiple pages. Read each page with SPACE first, then pick an option with 1 to 4.
• Your character is rolled, not chosen. Press R at creation to re-roll until you are happy, then pick your five Kai Disciplines.
• Pick Kai Disciplines to suit your roll. A challenged character can still win the game: take Healing if your Endurance is low, or Weaponskill and Mindblast to prop up a weak Combat Skill.
• Combat runs a round per roll. Press R each round; modifiers from disciplines, weapons and potions are applied for you.
• Weaponskill counts only with the weapon in hand. Being skilled with a weapon you do not carry does nothing. Find it and take it.
• Keep a meal in your Backpack. Some sections make you eat. With no meal and no Hunting discipline, you lose Endurance to hunger.

Between the rolls and the branching sections, no two adventures play the same, and the games stay challenging. You might make it through first time, but that can be luck as much as skill. Can you discover the alternative paths and still reach the end?