What does this mean? It means that finishing the gamebook is only the start. Then you have to do some playtesting and proofing (or get someone else to do it). But it will definitely be worth it!
An interview with Stuart Lloyd of the Lindenbaum Contest, gamebook author and writer of Lloyd of Gamebooks. Latest in series of gamebook interviews.
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Chat with Stuart Lloyd, of Lloyd of Gamebooks, the Lindenbaum Prize and Savage Realms author.
Stuart Lloyd is the writer of Lloyd of Gamebooks, organiser of the Lindenbaum Competition, author of the Icy Wastes of Mandess (a Savage Realms gamebook out soonish) and creator of Solo RPG SCRAWL.
We have start of Lloyds of Gamebooks, favourite gamebooks, picks from the gamebook reading list, advice for the Lindembaum Contest, writing process for Icy Wastes of Madness and trying to finish SCRAWL. Among other questions.
What was your gaming story before Lloyd of Gamebooks?
I loved gamebooks as a kid and they have always been part of my life. I got my first gamebook when I was 7 and couldn’t get enough of them.
I also discovered Dungeons and Dragons when I was 11, but never found anyone to play with. So until I started Lloyd of Gamebooks, I was reading gamebooks, playing computer games and not much else.
I enjoyed modifying games and coming up with my own house rules and I made a crude solo system for Advanced Fighting Fantasy when I was a child.
How did Lloyd of Gamebooks site come about?
After I didn’t win a prize in the 2009 Windhammer prize, I decided to analyse gamebooks and find out how to make a good one. I wrote a lot of short gamebooks as practise and Lloyd of Gamebooks started as a place to report my findings on what makes a good gamebook and to analyse my efforts.
It must have helped, because I won the 2010 Windhammer prize! After that, I decided to keep writing for Lloyd of Gamebooks as I was enjoying being part of the 2010s blogosphere community.
What are your favourite gamebooks?
Amongst the Fighting Fantasy series, Moonrunner is my favourite due to a villain who actually acts like an evil mastermind keeping you on the back foot for pretty much the whole book. The enemies you encounter are also very evocative of hammer horror creatures and the dark, oppressive, crime-ridden city has plenty of character.
With Lone Wolf, I have a soft spot for Prisoners of Time despite it being almost impossible. It’s an epic quest in the world the Sommerlunding send all of their worst criminals. You manage to save the world and deal with an old foe once and for all.
Heart of Ice is also a favourite, although it’s a bit cliché to say that at the moment. It has a great setting of an Earth with an insane climate thanks to a virus infected super AI, a human race on the brink of extinction, a cast of evocative characters all vying for the ultimate prize and a choice of endings that is a Rorschach test of your character.
I also love the Destiny Quest books for their in depth combat and character choices and their epic stories.
There are many more, but I will stop there!
If you had to choose 2 articles from the 2024 Gamebook Reading List, which would they be?
(There's a reading list for aspiring gamebook writers on Lloyds of Gamebooks)
I think the best 2 are from Sam Kabo Ashwell on These Heterogenous tasks blog because they are so comprehensive.
The first one, A Bestiary of Player Agency | These Heterogenous Tasks, is a comprehensive lists of all the different choices that you can offer players in a game. It can give some ideas if you are stuck on just asking players of they want to take the left or right corridor.
Standard Patterns in Choice-Based Games | These Heterogenous Tasks is another comprehensive list – this one is about the different structures of gamebooks. It can give you an idea of which structure you want or discover which structure you are using.
What's the story behind the Lindenbaum Contest
It all started with the Windhammer competition, a short gamebook competition which started in 2008 by Wayne Densley. His gamebooks are still on his website.
There wasn’t much to do with gamebooks on the internet then, so I found it quite easily. The competition ran until 2016 and if you look at previous entrants, you will see a lot of people who have gone on to write their own gamebooks or become part of a bigger gamebook series. It was a big part of the gamebook scene back then.
Fast forward to the summer of 2021 and I was in a Zoom get together of gamebook fans for international gamebook day. I mentioned Windhammer to them and they hadn’t heard about it. So between a need to make sure this part of gamebook history be remembered and a nostalgic yearning for the pre-Covid times, I decided to start the Lindenbaum competition.
The first one in late 2021 copied and pasted the rules of the Windhammer competition. I actually tried to get Wayne Densley’s permission to continue the competition under the Windhammer name, but he never got back to me. Instead, I named it after one of my entries to the Windhammer competition.
Any advice for anyone submitting to the contest for the first time?
(Entries are open for the Lindenbaum Contest until 15th May 2026)
Yes – make sure there are no mistakes. If you can do a gamebook where there’s nothing wrong, you are ahead of a lot of gamebooks already. What do I mean by no mistakes?
Make sure all the section links lead to where they should.
If you have a game system with dice, make sure none of the test are impossible.
Make sure the communication is clear and that there are no spelling and grammar errors.
What does this mean? It means that finishing the gamebook is only the start. Then you have to do some playtesting and proofing (or get someone else to do it). But it will definitely be worth it!
Since last year’s winner added ChatGPT to his acknowledgements, I decided to make an AI policy, not to ban AI, but to make sure that the minimum requirements for entry are a functioning gamebook.
This means that you can use an AI to analyse your entry for mistakes, and, if English is not your first language, the AI could help you rephrase things better in English.
Other than that, I would love to see all ideas and I would welcome original and creative uses of the 100 section, 25000 word constraints.
What can you tell us about the Icy Wastes, your gamebook for Savage Realms?
(The Icy Wastes of Madness was Kickstarted in 2025. And will be with us hopefully in 2026.
I can tell you lots about it because I wrote it :P.
It’s got a very Lovecraftian tone. Imagine the Mountains of Madness, but set in the near future.
You are a geologist who has been sent to Antarctica to find out why all of the research bases have gone silent. This is only the start of your problems. What you discover leads to a long journey across the frozen continent where you discover the remains of an alien civilisation and learn that these eldritch creatures and the empty research bases have a sinister link.
There’s madness, strange alien beings, questioning reality and whether existence has any meaning. A lot of Lovecraftian classics.
What was your writing process for Icy Wastes?
Since I was basing the book in a real life place (Antarctica) and in a vein of Lovecraft, I started by looking at maps of Antarctica. I found the locations of the bases and the landmarks there.
With that, I put together a map of where the adventure will take place. I then introduced Lovecraft’s influence to decide what you would find in each of the locations.
Then I put together the other character’s actions in the place and finally I thought about how your character would affect them and what actions they had available to them.
So I did a lot of background work and then put in the stuff that your character would see. It’s like I have an iceberg and I’m only showing you the tip (appropriately, for Antarctica).
It sounds like a lot of work, and it is a lot of work, but I like the consistency it brings and how it is easy to fit everything together.
I then write the book, and, as I do, I come up with new options and spot problems with the linking and go back and fix it. I would like to say I can plan everything out and then just get on with it, but I can’t. I have learnt to make it part of the process rather than a problem.
Eventually, I’m happy with it and I stop.
What are your next big projects that you can talk about
I really want to finish SCRAWL, which is less of a project and more of an obsession.
SCRAWL is a solo RPG system which you can use to play a series of gamebooks or just explore a procedurally generated world.
I have made a system that includes all the aspects of my favourite fantasy gamebooks and board games. It will be ready soon, I promise!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where can people find you online?
My website is www.lloydofgamebooks.com.
Is there anything else you would like to talk about?
I think it is a very enriching experience to try to write at least one gamebook. I think everyone should try it once.
So give it a try! And if you do give it a try, enter it into Lindenbaum so you might even get some prizes for it!
Finishing Up
If you haven't visited Lloyd of Gamebooks, take a look!.
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