Remember the kids? TV show Knightmare? Where a gawky square-eyed thirteen year old wandered blindly through a Dungeons and Dragons style green-screen environment, with buck-toothed team mates urging him on with instructions like, ?two paces left. No, two paces. No, your other left?. Along the way he'd encounter wildly overacting characters who would declare ?WELCOME BRAVE KNIGHT TO THE CASTLE OF TRONG! Choose wisely; will ye take the Fiery Chasm of Death? Or this gourd of dragon spunk??
Well, Enemy of Chaos?is like Knightmare. Except it isn't a TV show. It's a choose-your-own adventure book and iPhone game. And it's very, very funny. Yes, and an iPhone game. Having done almost no research into this, we can definitively confirm that this is the only book that's been published with an accompanying iPhone application. Behold, friends, for tis the future!
Enemy of Chaos author, Leila Johnston, also wrote How to Worry Friends and Inconvenience People, which included jokes such as ?say ?sweet enough already? when someone offers sugar, and ?white enough already? when they offer milk? and ?make calls with a weary note in your voice, saying ?Hello telephone, who are you pretending to be this time??
See, funny, yeah?
You play the Enemy of Chaos, an ageing embittered geek plucked from a sedentary life of RSI, mild OCD and Doritos to ?defeat disorder wherever it is found?, and you set off with an arsenal that includes anxiety attacks and a homeopathic tea bag (molecules contains a memory of tea in a concentration of 1 part per 10/400).
At the end of each section you get to choose which path to take. On the iPhone app, ?start a fight? is a frequent option. Depending on your choices, along the way you\’ll meet zombies, Demi Moore and your dad, and adventure through both the fantasy realm and the sort of awkward IRL social interactions which will be painfully familiar to anyone who – having paused an extended round of Half-Life to step into the bright, bright daylight to buy snacks – has haltingly attempted conversation with the newsagent.
Enemy of Chaos is hilarious and ferociously intelligent, and pokes gentle, nerdy fun at the sort of person who proudly wears their faded Red Dwarf T-shirt in public, and watches fantasy Manga tentacle porn in private.
There's also a touch of Douglas Adams about it – you may find yourself going back to reread sentences which are often laugh-out-loud funny in their own right.
So buy it. Buy it for yourself, or your ICT teacher, or for that ?bachelor uncle? who accidentally married another man in Second Life that time, and watch the tears of gratitude spill from behind those thick, thick glasses.
Post by the only slightly nerdy Robyn Wilder?of Domestic Sluttery
nondisbeliever says
I’ve seen this mentioned a few times on Twitter. It sounds pretty good! Reminds me a little bit of GrailQuest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grailquest).
I’ve been on a bit of a book amnesty recently, but I reckon I’ll grab myself a copy and show some support to a fellow scribbler!