At first glance, it might not seem as though there was a massive amount of variety in the Survival series. Five of the six books have you playing as a species of mammal, and all of them had you navigating what was effectively the same basic environment, ie: the woodlands and rivers of rural Britain. It's not hard to see the format transferring to more adventurous locations, such as the African savannahs or the Arctic plains, but they never strayed far afield, with most editions of Survival feeling like they were unfolding right on the others' doorsteps. In practice, I don't think it matters, since each animal brings a unique eye-perspective and its own individual set of talents and vulnerabilities, and while you'll find a few familiar notes here and there, in no book does the gameplay ever feel exactly the same. In the second edition of Survival, "Fox", you play as a predator, meaning that you get to be a dispenser of death as well as a possible recipient. Several pages involve you stalking various prey species and having to make judgements about which are the most viable targets. Compared to "Deer", it's a whole other angle, having to track down food that's liable to run away from you (although foxes are omnivores, not carnivores, and you'll also get the option to forage for apples and berries - one thing you'll learn from this book is what varied and resourceful feeders they are). Don't assume that being top of the food chain means that you automatically have the upper hand - no prey animal is a total sitting duck (except for the ones that are literally just that), and there is at least one quarry you might encounter who'll succeed in turning the tables on you in a shockingly fiendish manner.
"Fox" is, in many regards, already leaps and bounds ahead of "Deer", which had fewer visual puzzles and relied more extensively on dry textual information to guide you through your choices. The vagueness of some of the losing outcomes in "Deer", in not consistently accounting for where you went wrong, has here been rectified, so that the deaths always feel logical, reasonably telegraphed and a direct result of your flawed decision-making, as opposed to author Roger Tabor deciding to hit you with a random fatality every so often. Having said that, the one area in which "Deer" really excelled - its omnipresent sense of menace, as you were stalked by hunters who kept largely out of sight - isn't replicated quite so successfully here. In "Fox", it's less a case of trouble looking to seek you out than it is you getting into trouble only if you actively look for it. Most of the danger is situated on the farmland, and you'll likely have a pretty sweet time of it if you just stay in the fields and play tag with your sister - in fact, there is one possible route that allows you to finish the game in just three steps without encountering any danger at all. I'm not going to sell "Fox" short and say that it's necessarily the easiest of the Survival range, as there are enough diabolical surprises hidden throughout, but it is the book in which I didn't feel quite so perpetually endangered at all points of my adventure. The wind direction mechanism is retained from "Deer", but without that omnipresent sense of menace it feels largely redundant here, and "Fox" would be the last edition to make use of it. What "Fox" does implement a whole lot more thoughtfully than
"Deer" is the points system - in "Deer" it was only possible lose points
by dying, whereas "Fox" incorporates a number of non-fatal mistakes
(eg: if your prey gets away from you), which adds greater depth to the gameplay. Elsewhere, some of the innovations in "Fox" still feel a bit wet behind the ears - we see here the appearance of what will henceforth be referred to as "hidden
enemies", ie: creatures that pose a direct threat to your animal, but
whose presence in the illustration might not be immediately obvious
(like that snake who so bamboozled me when playing "Frog" as a child). "Fox"
has two such enemies, but they're of a fairly low challenge
(compared to the upcoming "Otter", which, trust me, has an absolutely devious one). The hidden pitfalls that are well-incorporated into "Fox" are those indicated by subtle environmental detail - it pays to give close consideration to where you are, what's around you, and what might be lurking just around the corner.
I mentioned in my coverage of "Deer" that a general flaw found in all six volumes of Survival is how easy it is to accidentally pick up on which choices are bad ones due to the layout of the books; the death endings, with their ominous grey coding, are located in the pages containing multiple outcomes, and they're difficult not to notice, even if you're headed for a nice safe green one. In the case of "Fox", it looks as though Tabor might have attempted to mitigate this problem by putting three of the five death endings within the same spread, but I'm not sure how much better this works in practice - access even one outcome from those two pages, you're hit by a near-total grey wall that's even more overwhelming and conspicuous than the alternative. I did have to remind myself that the books were aimed at children, who might not necessarily be keeping tabs on the specific numbers quite as diligently as older readers. As for the deaths themselves, one of the more distressing aspects of "Fox" is that, whenever you do make a fatal error, the text rarely indicates that your demise was instantaneous, but instead a protracted process caused by injuries that slowly and surely got the best of you. You might have time to skip around the fields with your sister, but it's tough at the top after all.
A small quirk - throughout the sections entitled "Expert Tips", Tabor keeps addressing a second person, and I didn't clock right away that he's referring to you in character as a fox. I was somewhat weirded out when Tabor advised me to hunt for worms by "catch[ing] one end carefully in your teeth and pull[ing] very gently until it comes free. If you pull too quickly it will snap." I really hope that no children who shared my confusion tried that at home.
For those of you wishing to play this game unspoiled, the point of no return approaches. What sinister secrets lie within the fox tome, and how did I rate them? Click below to find out.
I kid you not - there are spoilers ahead.
- Death #1 (5) - Death by snare: This was much better implemented than its direct equivalent in "Deer", although once again I draw a blank at whether the snare is meant to be visible in the illustration. Once I'd figured out that 5 was one of the bad choices, I gazed at it for ages and was at one point convinced that I could see the outline of a human skull peeking back at me from deep in the grasses, but no obvious wires that might indicate a snare. Still, I didn't feel cheated by the outcome as I did in "Deer", as I think the real giveaway that the chicken coop is to be avoided is embedded in the text: "You've caught two hens there already this month. Why not try it again?" It establishes that you are a repeat offender, and within a relatively short space of time at that, so whoever owns those chickens would have to be pretty slack not to have taken action by now. Decisions that rely on purely textual clues would get a lot more sparse in subsequent books, but this one is proof that they could be well-done - it leaves room for you to apply your own logic without spoon-feeding you the answer, as "Deer" sometimes did (eg: during the rutting sequence).
- Death #2 (6) - Death by bloke with a shotgun: The only death in "Fox" in which the wind direction plays a role...and to be honest, it's pretty unnecessary, since the man with the gun is probably the least well-hidden "hidden" enemy in the entire series. I mean, he's practically standing there in plain sight, so why would you take the option that moves you closer to him? Survival would get better in implementing these hidden enemies from the next book onward, but the two featured in "Fox" are both exceedingly easy to spot.
- Death #3 (7) - Death by walking on broken glass: During the portion of the story where you're attacked by the terrier, you're given the option of running back home to safety or into unknown territory, inside a greenhouse. The text insists that both are full of danger; nevertheless, the idea of anybody picking the latter out of anything other than morbid curiosity is honestly bemusing. Inside the greenhouse, you've got two potential escape routes - through a door propped open by a flower pot or through a broken window. The text suggests that the flower pot might create an obstruction, but this is an occasion where you really should ignore the text and study what's directly in front of you - reaching the window requires you to run across multiple shards of broken glass, and that's an even less attractive option. Take that route, and the text assures you that you still managed to escape the terrier, but died later from an infection caused by the injuries you sustained from the glass. Not a nice way to go, but a lovely example of the kind of visual logic puzzle that made Survival so engrossing.
- Death #4 (10) - Death by pursuit of Br'er Rabbit: Of all the rabbits skipping around that field, you had to go after the one with the ghoulish sense of self-preservation. Chase this crafty coney, and it will lead you out into the road and directly into the path of an incoming vehicle. The text explicitly states that the rabbit managed to clear the car in time, but you did not - unfortunate, but I suppose you've got to admire the rabbit for managing to pull that one off. The rabbit in question is advertised in the choices as being "by the wall", so presumably the book was looking to trick you into think it might be an easy target to corner. The visual prompt advising you otherwise is the street light visible from behind the trees, indicating that you are close to a road - a detail that would not be present if it weren't significant. This gets my vote for the best-implemented death in "Fox"; it's subtle enough that it might just catch you off-guard, and an example of why it pays to study every aspect of your environment carefully before making your decision. It's noteworthy that, although death on the road is a recurring scenario in all but two of the Survival books, this is the only one in which you're effectively tricked into taking the risk. This is also the only death in "Fox" in which your character appears to die instantaneously, but even then I'm not 100% sure.
- Death #5 (20) - Death by not-so-lazy dog: Our second "hidden" enemy, and it's not massively less conspicuous than that man with the shotgun. While attempting a poultry raid on a farm, you have the option of going behind a woodpile in order to sneak a little closer to some chickens...but why on earth would you want to do that when there's this massive great dog lying right next to the pile? It blends in with its surroundings better than the man with the shotgun, but you're still unlikely to pass it over. The dog is sleeping, so perhaps you thought you could jump over it, like in the pangram? Big mistake - this dog wasn't so lazy, and you weren't that quick, either. According to the text, "You escaped, but never fully recovered from your wounds", which gets my vote for most harrowing outcome, in that it makes me think of Bold from The Animals of Farthing Wood.
Other observations:
- The dog's presence might be ludicrously obvious, but the mutt redeems itself in being versatile enough to have at you in two separate outcomes. If you attack the chickens without going behind the woodpile, you'll wake up the dog anyway but this time have the opportunity to get away intact (you will, however, lose points, since you failed to get the chickens - should've gone with those sitting ducks). I like the idea of enemies influencing multiple outcomes, rather than each being confined to its own self-contained bubble, and the possibility of enemies coming to you, rather than requiring you to walk all the way up to them, certainly makes your world feel more alive and interactive. There is, however, only one other edition of Survival in which something comparable happens.
- I figured that the #13 rabbit might have a trick up its sleeve, since it's standing suspiciously calm and stationary in the midst of your attack. But according to the text, it only survives because you happened to be distracted by another one running in the opposite direction - which is not shown in the illustration. In which case, where was the indication that this rabbit was any worse a choice than #9? Is it just a case of 13 being unlucky? Probably not; it's a positively rosy outcome compared to where #10 rabbit takes you.
- Take the short and safe route - go to 4 and play tag with your sister. Go to 3 to keep on playing. Then choose 23 to retire to your earth. In the longer-term, this wouldn't actually make a good survival strategy, since you don't get to eat anything at all this way, but it'll suffice for the evening.
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