Book-Thirsty Thursday: Midnight Arcade: Crypt Quest/Space Battles, Gabe Soria

Although Midnight Arcade is effectively a love letter to classic video games and the choose-your-adventure book, it reads a touch young.

It’s hard to write a proper review of Gabe Soria’s Midnight Arcade: Crypt Quest/Space Battles, sent to me by Penguin Workshop, if only because it doesn’t read like a traditional book. Remember the choose-your-own-adventure fad of the late ’70s into the ’80s and early ’90s? That’s where Soria has looked to for inspiration in format — quite literally. The major difference is that many of the choices are presented in the format of a set of arcade controls, with joysticks and buttons representing options.

And that’s where Soria’s other influence comes in. As the title suggests, the adventures here are Crypt Quest and Space Battles, which seem to be pretty closely related to things like Castlevania and Galaga. (Yes, Castlevania had an arcade cabinet in the ’80s.) Those are two good, solid choices, although they might seem hopelessly dated to young readers who don’t have access to the institutional memory of older gamers.

Therein lies Soria’s other problem: the book is meant for younger readers. Although there’s a certain amount of nostalgia appeal to be had for an adult who comes across this book, like this reviewer, that doesn’t make some of the writing choices excusable. It’s hard to justify some of the reuse of jokes close together or the words randomly written in all-caps. Not all readers notice, but some do and will.

That being said, there is some fun in gaming through a book. Kendall Hale provides the artwork, which has a lively, almost comic-book-esque flavor to it. That does skew a bit young again, of course, but it also helps bring the games you’re playing to life.

Some of the solutions are counterintuitive, of course, though that’s pretty normal for gaming. It also seems possible to skip levels of both depending on the choices you make. As I grew used to the methods of thinking Soria used, I was more than happy to do the book equivalent of saving before making choices (also known as holding a place in the book with one finger while I flipped to the outcome of the choice on a separate page) just in case.

Next: Review: Tarnished City, Vic James

Ultimately, I kept having the thought that this book would be good for a gamer parent to share with their gamer children — one has the ability to understand the references being made, and the other gets the chance to both indulge a passion and also get some reading time in. I’m only a gaming adult, but hey, Crypt Quest is still easier than beating the original Castlevania.