FF04: Starship Traveller

Written by Steve Jackson - Illustrated by Peter Andrew Jones

I think the idea behind Starship Traveller is absolutely brilliant, it's like your very own Star Trek adventure but in gamebook form, except with much more violence and gore. I mean this is a fighting fantasy book after all!

This is the first in the series to take on the sci-fi theme, so I think we have to give a fair amount of credit to Steve for taking such a risk by changing up the formula from the last few entries in the series. 

You'll be battling other spaceships, negotiating with alien races, looking for fuel, food, and medical supplies, exploring far off distant worlds. It'smostly well written and does offer up a good level of surprise and excitement when you play. although there are points where it seems even Steve himself lost interest and couldn't be bothered to name certain planets or creatures properly.

Sadly the artwork is super bland in this one. Everything seems much more cartoony and bold with very little depth and shading which is a real shame as I love most of the artwork in these gamebooks. These images are the things that stick in our heads decades later.

My biggest issue however is the mechanics, Starship Traveller requires a hell of a lot of management and number crunching. I mean a HELL OF A LOT!

There's just too much of it, you have to maintain all the stats from not just your ship but all of your crew members, combat is long, drawn-out and is handled differently between fights in space and on land. Is it hand-to-hand combat or a phaser shootout? well, there are different rules for both! You have to choose crew members to take on certain actions and If anyone dies theyre replaced by another crew member that you have to roll up on the fly. 

There are rules for ship repairs at certain spaceports and sometimes you can heal if you have the right staff on board. It's all just too much I just find the whole thing so immersion breaking. Sadly this is one of those rare occasions where playing the TinManGames iPhone app version is such a better experience.  

I get that they were experimenting with the series and honestly it sounds like such an awesome concept on paper but in reality, it just ended up being too much like a traditional roleplaying game (and not even a good one!) with countless stats to manage and excessive dice rolls. For me, it just lost the magic that the previous books seemed to have which really sucks.

Skip this one unless you're a die-hard sci-fi fan or just someone who loves numbers (or Rainman?)


Reviewed by Harrison Marchant