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Project Aon is an effort to post the old Lone Wolf game books to the webpage medium...

http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Home

I'm also seeing similar book apps in the App Store which give the player a chance to pick starting stats to influence gameplay progression. (One I found involved the player RPing as a dragon, hoarding treasure and defending territory from other dragons and human kings and wizards. I forgot the name, though.)

Yup. I've been rereading the old Lone Wolf gamebooks over at Project Aon which use the hypertext route really well. They've got a couple programs which let you run the books after download, all permitted under license of course, the one I'm enjoying using the most is Seventh Sense. It's a nice way of cutting down on the annoyances of using a book - keeping track of the math and the rules, losing your place - but there's something to be said for the charm of doing it oldschool.

Yup. I've been rereading the old Lone Wolf gamebooks over at Project Aon which use the hypertext route really well. They've got a couple programs which let you run the books after download, all permitted under license of course, the one I'm enjoying using the most is Seventh Sense. It's a nice way of cutting down on the annoyances of using a book - keeping track of the math and the rules, losing your place - but there's something to be said for the charm of doing it oldschool.

The lone wolf series was probably the best of the bunch. The I agree with you though about the classic turn your own adventure series. Those were garbage. Wow I looked up the series and it looks like the author is letting folks download some of them for free. http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/License http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_(gamebooks)

I loved those books. I was quite surprised a year or so ago to find that not only have most of the books been preserved online as Project Aon, but someone actually ported the first couple books to the nintendo DS, with enforced gameplay, an inventory screen, managed battles, etc!

I loved those books. I was quite surprised a year or so ago to find that not only have most of the books been preserved online as Project Aon, but someone actually ported the first couple books to the nintendo DS, with enforced gameplay, an inventory screen, managed battles, etc!

You know they have these Lonewolf books online. These people are doing an amazing job.

http://www.projectaon.org/

For those unaware, the Lone Wolf books are all available for free download now: www.projectaon.org Maybe this is common knowledge now, but I just found out about recently.

That one would be Inside UFO 54-40, which was my first introduction to the series. As you might guess, I really skewed my perception of the franchise. I did get more into the Lone Wolf books mentioned elsewhere under this article; I completed volumes 1 through 12 before not being able to find the books locally anymore.

A group of people have, with the permission of Joe Dever, started to transcribe the Lone Wolf, World of Lone Wolf, and other CYOA books to make them available online. Take a look at Project Aon. They've gotten through the Kai and Magnakai books as well as some of the Grand Master books.

Many of the chose your own adventure books are here as abandonware
http://www.the-underdogs.info/gamebook.php

and a few joe dever lone wolf stuff here

http://www.projectaon.org/

And yes I used to read ahead and see which way was interesting.

I loved the Lone Wolf books. I periodically pick them up and read one when I am in a particularly nostalgic mood. I loved the cross between D&D and CYOA. What a brilliant masterpiece they were. Fortunately, in the vein of open source software, the author, Joe Dever, has graciously given the rights for the electronic distribution of his books free of charge by Project Aon.

Would author- and artist-approved scanning, proofreading, and HTMLization (to say nothing of an excellent Javascript app that can handle inventory management, skill advancement, and combat) meet your definition of technical sprucing?

Granted, Project Aon is the first link at the bottom of the above-cited Wikipedia article -- but just in case, I thought I'd point it out. I was a huge fan of the series when I was younger, and as such it's good to see the books preserved so well.

I don't recall that at all. I remember when I went to the Darklords' city I had to keep the Sommerswerd in a special scabbard to prevent its blazing aura of uber good power from giving me away, but regarding Darklords themselves, so far as I can remember the Sommerswerd always used to just blast 'em.

That said, I've been introduced from elsewhere in this discussion to this little marvel, so I may be replaying the lot quite soon. In which case, the fewer spoilers I have to ruin my rediscovery of my half-remembered youth, the better. Don't correct me, I'll find out :-)

There's another book that has almost the same thing happen at the end (Prisoner of Time I think, but don't quote me on that), and in Castle Death it was entirely possible to lose the Sommerswerd forever.

Don't remind me. I remember that. Got captured, locked up, all equipment taken. I was livid. But I'd gone through God knows how many books without cheating and I wasn't going to start now... thankfully I found my gear in some lockup and got the sword back, but I was so damn close to tears at that one.

I was a huge fan of the Lone Wolf series. Stomped through like twenty of those things.

Available online for free (as in gratis) at:

http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Books

The author of the Lone Wolf series has generously allowed many of them to be published on line, free of charge.

I'm the OP. Thanks for this news, fellow AC! Your post needs five Informative moderations RIGHT NOW. I didn't follow the link from the article, thinking it was a link to LWAC mods, although the title "Tests of the Sun" should have probably tipped me off that the guy had made an error. The Kai lords were followers of the sun, were descended from Sun Eagle, hailed from Sommerlund, and Sun Eagle's & Lone Wolf's sword was the Sommerswerd. :-/

I don't have NWN, but I sure am going to grab a copy now! You hear that, publishers? I'm going to buy a game because of the availability of a mod based on Joe Dever's Lone Wolf, hint hint.

These are great discoveries for me, having just discovered this link to the officially authorized, downloadable game books on the (apparently) frequently updated Project Aon site. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

I'm the OP. Thanks for this news, fellow AC! Your post needs five Informative moderations RIGHT NOW. I didn't follow the link from the article, thinking it was a link to LWAC mods, although the title "Tests of the Sun" should have probably tipped me off that the guy had made an error. The Kai lords were followers of the sun, were descended from Sun Eagle, hailed from Sommerlund, and Sun Eagle's & Lone Wolf's sword was the Sommerswerd. :-/

I don't have NWN, but I sure am going to grab a copy now! You hear that, publishers? I'm going to buy a game because of the availability of a mod based on Joe Dever's Lone Wolf, hint hint.

These are great discoveries for me, having just discovered this link to the officially authorized, downloadable game books on the (apparently) frequently updated Project Aon site. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

I'm the OP. Thanks for this news, fellow AC! Your post needs five Informative moderations RIGHT NOW. I didn't follow the link from the article, thinking it was a link to LWAC mods, although the title "Tests of the Sun" should have probably tipped me off that the guy had made an error. The Kai lords were followers of the sun, were descended from Sun Eagle, hailed from Sommerlund, and Sun Eagle's & Lone Wolf's sword was the Sommerswerd. :-/

I don't have NWN, but I sure am going to grab a copy now! You hear that, publishers? I'm going to buy a game because of the availability of a mod based on Joe Dever's Lone Wolf, hint hint.

These are great discoveries for me, having just discovered this link to the officially authorized, downloadable game books on the (apparently) frequently updated Project Aon site. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

I liked the "advanced" CYOA books, I believe the series I had was Escape from Tenopa or something to that effect. But my favorite game book series of all time was Lone Wolf. That series is now online as the copyright has returned to the author, and he has allowed them to be published on the web. They are still trying to secure the rights to some of the artwork though. The site is Project Aon. They still need some help proof reading some of the books before they are placed online.