This is a module that, for the most part, follows the traditional fairy tale which is good in that the youngsters know what is coming next. A quick look in the toolset will tell you that the creator of this module knows his/her stuff as it is script heavy and pretty well structured with some good conversations. There are, however, one or two additions to the old tale. 

The module opens in Jack's house and a quick word about Jack. Although the PC will be changed to look like Jack he will retain the name of the PC you chose from the premade list as there isn't a PC contained in the package. This might seem a small thing but I chose a wizard, thinking to give myself haste and a couple of other spells ( being a cheat at heart and scared of giants !) however, I received my comeuppance in no short measure when it came to cutting down the beanstalk ( not a spoiler I hope) and I was unable to equip the weapon to carry out that task ! I'd recommend a fighter. 

At this point I'd make a general comment. I don't know how you go about your modules but I tend to wander here and there looting everything and following the quests. In this module you may come to grief ( I did) if you don't listen carefully to Jack's mum and try to grab things in the right order. Because I looted the whole castle on my first visit the giant disappeared and I had to restart to get him back. I  think keeping the player honest would have been helped had the author used the journal but mine was blank only throwing up an error. If mum's words had been turned into quests I'd have found it easier to stay on task. 

So our first task was to sell the cow which I duly did but only for magic beans which didn't particularly please mum but on the way to selling it I had a wonderful spell fishing which I hadn't expected. Cleverly thought out and implemented this was an unexpected game within a game and a welcome addition.  There was also a good conversation with the stranger about the magic beans if you prove reluctant so the module was off to a good start. 

After an unpleasant discussion with mum and being sent to my room (which was a lovely little cameo cutscene with Jack throwing himself onto his rug in despair )!  I woke the next morning to a giant beanstalk at the back of the house which was the start of the real adventure and which I won't cover in huge detail to avoid spoiling bits.  There is a good icy area at the top of the beanstalk and an evil castle belonging to the giant ( why don't we have some lovely ice castles for areas such as this? ).  I met the giant's wife / girlfriend /partner? , had to hide and pilfered goods on each occasion and returned to mum. 

And there my knowledge of the module ends as explained before. It was a game breaker as just as the giant was climbing down I was unable to chop down the beanstalk so the whole thing ground to a halt. 

Positive - Lots of good things about this. Not least the fact that the creator, Dave Crowell, after building it in 2015 came back last year to update it. good to see someone care enough to do that. I'm not sure what changes were made but there is definitely at least one more modern section of the module which looked good although I'm not sure it sits well with the rest of it.  I was sure that the cow would become my henchman to make him follow me bu this and a whole lot else was done by scripting which looked pretty good. I liked the little cutscenes which were also done in a way unfamiliar to me as I use the John Bye Gestalt system.  Finally, it's nice to see a traditional story pretty faithfully executed. 

Less so - I think much of my troubles in completing the module are easy things to solve. In fact many of them could be laid straight at my door !  You need to choose a PC capable of wielding a weapon, you need to listen closely to mum and stick to the path provided by the author. I think it would have been easier to do so had there been even a short readme to adults possibly about to attempt the module with youngsters to help them guide them in the right way. Using the journal would certainly have helped in this. Mine was blank and threw up errors. It is also possible to create conversation errors by not adopting a linear approach.

However, the story itself is well told and  I would play this with my grandchildren. It was last updated in 2021 and the module can be found on the Vault here.