Firstly let’s deal with the elephant in the room… you don’t escape Castle Quarras in this book, in fact what you do is precisely the opposite, you infiltrate Castle Quarras… but I imagine that would be a less appealing title, so we are fed this lie. 

You play Derek Shadowalker, a thief tasked with going into the castle and finding the gem of an evil wizard who is manipulating the ruler of the land to be evil himself. Aimed at a more mature audience than other TSR gamebooks, Shadowalker is a retired thief, an actual adult with a beard and everything and not a snot-nosed kid as in so many of those books. This more mature content is also present in the complexity of the rules, which now have fight and inventory mechanics.

The inventory mechanics are particularly cool, as you have to select two items to take with you at the start of the adventure, which will determine what you can and can’t do in each playthrough, greatly enhancing the replayability of the book. The art style is also more violent (and cool!) than Endless Quest books with Mark Nelson’s interior art even depicting a decapitation… nasty!