Hello everyone. This Let’s Play was originally planned to start in early January after I returned from my Christmas family gatherings. However, I ran into a gauntlet of unlucky events, which included the death of my grandmother (may she rest in peace), a massive list of work orders, a rather nasty cold that kept me bedridden for a while, and a whole lot of tense family situations that required my assistance. So, I would like to offer an *enormous* apology for the extremely late delay in getting this Let’s Play thread up and going.
With that out of the way, anyone interested in joining this adventure is welcome. I was lucky enough to get a copy of this gamebook, and I thought introducing a new gamebook series would provide at least some entertainment value to the handful of users in this forum. As with my previously Let’s Plays, I will try to update this thread on a twice per day basis.
Introduction
Playing the gameThis is not a normal book, it’s a gamebook. You don’t read through it like a normal book, starting at the first page and ending with the last. Instead, Metal City Mayhem lets you decide how Sonic and Tails will solve puzzles, collect rings, defeat their enemies, release their friends, and put an end to the sinister schemes of Dr Robotnik. If you make the right choices, they’ll win. If you make the wrong choices – well, that’s too horrible to think about.
Before you start playing the game, read through the simple rules on the next few pages. The rules are almost exactly the same as the ones in the other Sonic gamebook, Zone Rangers, so if you’ve played that you will know how to play this. You will also need one ordinary die, and a pen or pencil.
SONIC’S VITAL STATISTICSIn Metal City Mayhem, you help to guide Sonic through the action. Every so often Sonic and Tails will need advice on what to do next, and you choose what they should do. Their adventure will succeed or fail depending on your choices.
The book is divided into three hundred sections, each one with a number. The first one is 1, the last one is 300 but you don’t read through them in order. Instead, each section ends with several different things that Sonic and Tails could do next, and a number for each one. Once you have decided what you want Sonic and Tails to do, turn to the section with that number and read it. Keep doing this until you have either finished the adventure, or failed along the way.
Before you start, you have to decide how good Sonic is at doing certain things. Everybody knows that he’s very fast and very cool, but do you know exactly how cool, or how fast? This is your chance to decide.
If you turn to page 12, you will find Sonic’s Vital Statistics sheet – a list of Sonic’s abilities, what he is carrying, how many lives he has left, how many rings he has collected, and a few other things. Tails doesn’t have a sheet of his own, in this book his abilities are the same as Sonic’s.
In the centre of pages 12-13 are Sonic’s (and Tails’s) abilities. There are six of these: Speed, Strength, Agility, Coolness, Quick Wits and Good Looks. Beside them is a description of the ability and a box, which is empty at the moment.
Read the descriptions of Sonic’s abilities, then choose the one that you think Sonic is best at; write a ‘5’ in that box. Put a ‘4’ in the next best, a ‘3’ in the third best and ‘2’ in all the rest. The different numbers show what Sonic’s strengths and weaknesses are.
Doing Things
Some sections of the book will ask you to roll on one of Sonic’s abilities against a particular Difficulty Number. This means that you should roll one die, add the number you’ve written by that ability, and compare the total to the Difficulty Number. If your number is equal to or higher than the Difficulty Number, Sonic has succeeded (yes!). If your number is lower, Sonic has lost (oh no!). Follow the instructions in that section to find out what happens next.
Fighting
Sonic also uses his abilities to fight his enemies. Sometimes defeating them is so easy that you won’t have to roll, but at other times you’ll be told to roll combat against one of Sonic’s abilities. It can be any of them, depending on the enemy and the type of attack they use.
All of Sonic’s enemies have a rating, which is a number between five and ten. To fight them, roll one die and add it to the ability Sonic is using in that fight – the section will tell you which. If Sonic rolls higher or equal to the enemy’s rating, the enemy is beaten (pow!). If not, the enemy has a chance to strike back against Sonic. Roll one die and add it to their rating. If the result is more than 10, Sonic has been hit (ouch!). If Tails is fighting alongside Sonic, Sonic gets to add three points to his attack roll.
When Sonic is hit by an enemy or a trap, one of two things can happen. If he is carrying any rings, he loses them all and must try to get past the enemy or trap again. If he is not carrying any rings (because he hasn’t found any yet, or because he hasn’t picked any up since the last time he was hit) he loses a life, and has to go back to earlier in the adventure to try again. The section will tell you where to turn.
Lives
Sonic starts the book with three lives, the same as in the game. If he loses them all, he has failed and must start again from the beginning. If Tails is trying to do something and loses a life, one of Sonic’s lives is lost – Tails has no lives of his own.
There are two ways to get extra lives. Firstly, Sonic can find them concealed along the route of his adventure. Secondly, if he can collect more than 100 rings, he gets an extra life.
Carrying Stuff
Sonic starts the game carrying a few items. The book will tell you if and when he can use these. He and Tails may also pick up new items along the way, or lose some in the course of the adventure. Always write any new items down on Sonic’s Vital Statistics sheet, and cross off the ones he and Tails don’t have any more.
Throughout the adventure, Sonic and Tails will find and collect gold rings, which work the same way as rings do in the video game: they protect our heroes from hurt, help them get extra lives, and may let them enter a special bonus zone. When you finish the adventure, your score is the number of rings that Sonic has. Challenge your friends to see who can collect the most!
That’s everything you need to help Sonic and Tails through the perils that await them in the metal city, Robotropolis. Now turn to Section 1 and read on.
SPEED
Sonic’s really fast. His training and his special shoes make him the fastest there is, and he loves the feeling of speed. But that can lead to trouble. Sometimes he’s going so fast he doesn’t notice things, or can’t see when he should stop – or even can’t stop and collides with things.
STRENGTH
Sonic’s pretty tough and he knows it. He can run all day and smash Robotnik’s traps just by bouncing on them. But he relies on his strength too much and doesn’t always think about problems – it’s much easier to bounce on them. That attitude can put him in dangerous situations.
AGILITY
Sonic’s a natural gymnast. Climbing, jumping, swinging, swimming, diving, exploring – he can do it all, and he loves to show off his abilities by exploring and going where his friends can’t. But he must be careful; just because he can get into some places doesn’t always mean he can get out again.
COOLNESS
With those spikes and that attitude, how can Sonic be anything but cool? But he’s cocky as well, and thinks he can do things he can’t. And sometimes he’d rather have fun than do something important that has to be done.
QUICK WITS
When something happens, Sonic’s always the first to react to it. But he doesn’t like hanging around and hates waiting for things – or people. Sometimes that means he’s not prepared for what might happen next.
COOL LOOKS
Sonic looks good, and he knows that when he meets people, if he’s charming and polite, he can wow them. But he is a bit vain; he takes care of his appearance and doesn’t like doing things that’ll mess up his spikes or his trainers.
1
It’s a quiet afternoon in the Green Hill Zone. The only sounds are the breezes rustling the leaves of the trees, the splashing of the waterfalls, some strange clanking noises in the distance, and a series of small electronic bleeps, crashes and explosions as Sonic the Hedgehog sits on a rock, playing Botman on his Sega Game Gear. He borrowed the Botman cartridge from his piggy friend Porker Harris this morning, and has been playing it all day without a break. He’s almost finished it as well, except that he just can’t work out how to beat the huge Technobot at the end of Level Six. Whatever he tries, the Technobot stomps on him every time. Eventually Sonic’s stomach rumbles and he realizes that he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. He switches the Game Gear off, grabs a burger with large fries from his metal sandwich box and tucks in.
Five minutes later he’s finished but hasn’t come up with any good ideas about the Technobot except for one: asking Porker Harris what to do. Porker’s the only one in the Green Hill Zone who has finished the game. It took him six weeks – pig’s trotters aren’t too good for controlling a Game Gear – but he did it in the end, and that means he must have beaten the Technobot. Sonic is almost too proud to go and ask his friend’s advice, but Porker is a good friend and besides, it’s only a video game, not the end of the world.
Sonic stands up, put his Game Gear in his sandwich box and sprints off through the Green Hill Zone to look for Porker. The zone is still littered with a lot of the junk that Dr Ivo Robotnik left here after the last time he tried to take over the world, but the spikes, springs, smashed robots and traps are all rusting and falling apart, with grass and bushes growing over them. The place is a mess, but it’s Sonic’s home and he’s fond of it.
There’s no sign of Porker anywhere. As Sonic stops and looks around him he realizes that he can’t see any of his other friends either. The whole zone seems deserted and silent, with no birdsong or sounds of animals at play. Even the waterfalls seem quieter and, strangest of all, the background music has stopped completely. It’s very eerie, and Sonic begins to get an uncomfortable prickly feeling down his back that has nothing to do with his spikes. He comes round the edge of one of the cliffs – and stops. In front of him is a scene of destruction. Trees have been uprooted, bridges smashed, and huge scars carved into the earth. And still there is no sign of anyone, or any movement. What’s going on?
Sonic turns around and looks out of the pages of the book, straight at you. ‘Hey, pal,’ he says, ‘it’s good to see you. You’re supposed to be the one with the bright ideas round here. What do you think I should do?’
If you think Sonic should search the torn-up area for a clue about where his friends might be, turn to section 66. If you think he should find some of Dr Robotnik’s old devices and try to use those to help him, turn to section 119. But if you think he should stop rushing around and spend a while thinking about the problem, turn to 173.
In addition to the above choice, how do you want to assign Sonic’s abilities? Please make your decisions before 9:00 AM PDT to guarantee that they will be counted.
