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I'm sharing this plea on behalf of a mate of mine in the hope that the Dakkanauts can help.

The year was 1995 (I think) and a trade in the playground led me to the first gamebook I would call my own.. But for the life of me I can't remember what it was called.

It's odd because I can remember so much about the time at hand, even details of the book in question, but for the life of me, I can't recall it's name. Which is a bit of a problem.. Because I want to find it once more.

Which is where I am hoping you guys can come in. Can you help me name that book?

From what I remember, the year was 1995 (so I have a rough time-frame for
it's publication) and, the book itself was about A6 in size, quite thin (only about 30-40 small paragraphs with a smattering of pictures) and, paperback (center-stapled). I also remember that the chatter on the playground at the time was that it had come out of a lucky bag.

Inside the book, I remember one key entry where you find a wooden table with a scroll, a bag of coins and, a key (I believe), and the scroll warned you to take only either the key or the coins. If you took both I think you fell in a river or something in the next entry and it was game over. I also vaguely recall the cover reminding me of the entry to Shadowgate castle. Well, retrospectively, as I hadn't played Shadowgate at the time. It was also certainly more cartoony in its style than Shadowgate.

I also VERY vaguely recall this book being numbered 1, so there where potentially a few in the series.. Maybe. That's a sketchy recall at best though.

As you can imagine, I am quite nostalgic about this one, so if you know anything, ANYTHING, I would love to hear from you.

So, does this ring any bells out there?

Shadowgate.

Don't ask how I even remember that. I never played the game.

Yup, that's Shadowgate. Insanely hard game.

See also: Uninvited, and Deja Vu. Same engine, similar difficulty, one is a horror game, and the other was a film noir detective game. Both by the same company.

SUCCESS! (of a sort . . .)

The publication in question has now been identified as Mini Adventure Comics #1: The Dungeons of Doom: The Master's First Challenge.

The next objective is to either find/obtain an actual copy, or at least an image of it (the pic in the original post was just an "it looked a bit like this").

Glad you found your book! But now i want to try out Shadowgate ha ha, anyone got a link where i can download the game?

http://www.thehouseofgames.net/index.php?t=10&id=352