creouts
A number pyramid with 47 on top, 21 and 26 below, and 9, 12 and 14 on the bottom row, beside the covers of Escape the Jungle Step Pyramid, Escape the Bakery After Dark and Escape Anaconda Island.

Field Notes

How a Puzzle Adventure Gamebook Works (and Why You Don't Read It in Order)

3 min read
  • How to play
  • Gamebooks
  • Beginner

A puzzle adventure gamebook is not a novel and not a workbook. It is a bit of both. You have a story to move through and a lock on every door, and the lock is a math puzzle. There is one big surprise for first-timers: you must not read it from page 1 to the end. Here is how it works.

The three moves

Every cover shows the same small box marked Start here. It lists three moves, and that is the whole game.

Three boxes joined by arrows. Box 1: Solve the pyramid. Box 2: Read the door brick. Box 3: Turn to that page.
Solve, read, turn. Then do it again on the new page.
  • Solve the pyramid. Each chamber shows a puzzle. Some bricks are given and some are missing. Solve it like any number pyramid: add up, subtract down.
  • Read the door brick. One brick is bold. When you have solved the pyramid, the number in that brick is a page number.
  • Turn to that page. You arrive in a new chamber with a new lock. The cover's third move is a quick check of the door's glyph, the small picture that marks each door, so you know you have found the right one.

A worked example

Here is a small lock, drawn the way the books draw their pyramids. The bold door brick is the top one, and the number in it is where you go next.

The lock

Bottom row given, the rest hidden

You can see 9, 12 and 14 along the bottom. The top brick, the door brick, is a mystery.

Step 1

Add up the middle row

9 + 12 = 21 and 12 + 14 = 26. Each brick is the sum of the two bricks below it.

Step 2

Read the door

21 + 26 = 47. The door brick says 47, so you turn to page 47. That page is somewhere else in the book. The next chamber is waiting there.

This is a made-up example. In the books the locks get trickier, with other kinds of lock and puzzles with missing bricks in awkward places.

Why not read it in order?

Because the order of the pages is the book's way of hiding the route. Page 47 is not next to page 46 in the story. If you read straight through, you would skip the puzzles and see chambers in a jumble. The answers send you through the story in the right order.

Tips for a first expedition

  • Use a pencil. You will fill in bricks and sometimes rub one out.
  • Trust the page numbers. They jump around on purpose. Follow the door, not the order.
  • Work in short sittings. A chamber or two at a time is plenty.
  • Check before you turn. Add the pyramid back up once. A wrong answer sends you to the wrong page.

Books mentioned

Escape the Jungle Step Pyramid cover

Escape the Jungle Step Pyramid

A puzzle adventure gamebook: solve each math puzzle, turn to the page it reveals, and climb nine terraces through 45 locked chambers. Number pyramids are only some of its 12 kinds of lock.

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Escape the Bakery After Dark cover

Escape the Bakery After Dark

A puzzle adventure gamebook with 45 puzzle doors in 9 rooms and 14 kinds of lock. The math puzzles are the main course; the 10 vegan bread recipes in the back are a bonus for the oven, not part of the puzzles.

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Escape Anaconda Island cover

Escape Anaconda Island

A puzzle adventure gamebook along nine locked walkways to the Lookout Pyramid, with 15 kinds of lock and true snake facts. River Rise is one of those 15 locks, so the book is not all of one puzzle.

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