D&D Endless Quest: Into The Jungle Review

Review copy courtesy of Candlewick Press.

Think of Dungeons & Dragons and you think of adventures, and rule books. That never stopped D&D from branching out to other things like colouring books, cartoons, and gamebooks. And speaking of gamebooks, the new Endless Quest series was released on September 8^th, 2019. I say new, because it's really an act of book necromancy. Endless Quest existed back in the TSR days, but now it's back. And today I'll be looking at the Into The Jungle book from the revived series.

The soft cover version of the book.

The Book Itself

The premise of the book is that you are a cleric sent on a quest to locate Artus Cimber and the Ring of Winter. The book itself is roughly 122 pages long, and has the kinds of choices you'd expect from a gamebook. Which way to go, who to trust, and whether to stay your ground or fight. It's written in a brisk pace, and even manages to fit some characterization.

It's a quick read, and has many references to the D&D we know and love. If you read or played Tomb of Annihilation, you'll recognize some locations, similarities, and monsters as it does take place in Chult. It's a nice touch, especially considering how I don't think many in the target demographic would recognize them unless they play the adventure some time later. Should they get the chance to do so, I think that moment of realization would be magical.

The book isn't afraid to kill you off, and has a bit of a trial and error feel at times. However, it's also not one of those adventure books or adventure games that has one right path and every other path is death. As a result the book also has multiple endings. Some are more pleasant for the main character than others and it's nice to see, especially since I remember some such books from my youth with only one ending. They also give you some guides on your journey, which is a much needed touch for a better D&D feel. The short page length prevents these touches from being extremely detailed. It is my impression that this was done to appeal to the target audience of 8-12 year olds. It also doesn't seem like all the books are linked in an overarching story. For example, they could all be involved in the side effects of the Rage of Demons story.

The page count I mentioned earlier isn't telling the whole story. I'll go into more detail further down, but there is a lot of art here and it's a bit of a double edged sword. I'd say it's a worthwhile trade, but it does mean there is less space for words. I wish the book was longer, as it would allow for a bigger story and more choices.

A pterafolk image from the book. A pretty good example of the style and quality to expect from the art, though a lot of it is smaller.

Format

The layout of the page is stretched of text and pictures together. As you'd expect, the picture on the page is directly related to what is being experienced. Being chased by zombies? There's zombies. Hearing about aarakocra? Well, here's a picture. It's available in soft and hard cover version, but I received the soft cover version.

Art

If there is one standout thing about this gamebook, it's the art. There is lots of it, and it is well matched to what is happening on the page. My experience with these sorts of books in my youth were that they were mostly text. Actually, most of the time they were exclusively text outside the covers. Admittedly, some had amazing covers. Dungeons & Dragons on the other hand had tons of illustrations. Adventures, core books, setting books, they all often were loaded with great art and keeping that here is something that helps make it more than just another gamebook. It looks a lot more impressive than the grey paper pictureless books I remember. The one thing that takes away from it is that you'll recognize many of the pictures if you've read through the current books in this edition. I doubt this would be an issue for the 8-12 year olds it targets, but I think it's still worth noting.

An example two pages of the book. Looks pretty good, doesn't it?

Price

The suggested price is $8.99 USD or 10.99 CAD. That's around standard for such a book, though if you are outside the demographic putting the coin towards the D&D starter set will be tempting.

Overall

If you are the target audience (8-12 years old and like gamebooks) I think you'll enjoy it. It's a tough recommend outside of that area, but I'm sure I would've enjoyed it when I was that age and I'm hard pressed to remember a better gamebook I read at that age. However, it is a gamebook themed with D&D and while I could see it bringing interest to D&D, it doesn't bring the same experience. Treat it as its own thing. It's also a bit on the short side, but I could see such a thing being really interesting to young people who never heard of D&D or can't find a group but heard of it. Hopefully it brings more interest to the hobby and system.

Other

• Anyone have a kid that read a book in the series? I'd be very curious to see what they thought. I can also see that some D&D experience would make it all the more exciting, and vice versa. Like a feedback loop.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ENDLESS QUEST: INTO THE JUNGLE. Copyright © 2018 by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.