Calling all FIGHTING FANTASY fans...

[Bouwel]

I think they should do some modern versions of these books

You are of course presuming they can read

You'd have to write such a book in text speak otherwise it's hard to read, innit?

-Bouwel-

[JayzusB.Christ]

Warlock of Firetop Mountain and Riddling Reaver were the best for pure atmosphere. never actually played them, as i suspect most people didn't - just thumbed through them keeping as many fingers within the pages as possible.
I stayed in my brother's friend's house this year and was pleased to see that he'd acquired every one of them through ebay, amazon and his old collection which I remember well.

[TordelBack]

Because I'm sadder than a very sad thing, I've been nostalgically tripping through the online world of Fighting Fantasy while awaiting Warlock of Firetop Mountain on the DS, when I stumbled across a playable version of Alec's Garden of Bones adventure:

Http://www.ffproject.com/garden.htm

It's a retro blast, recommended!  Very neat if unforgiving online interface, no more cheating for Tordelback!  Plenty of other good stuff on the host site, http://www.ffproject.com,  particularly enjoyed Hunger of the Wolf, which boasts a top twist!

[House of Usher]

Good fun! Garden of Bones has a good, atmospheric setting, full of necromancy. Will explore the site another day when I have more time. A great way to while away hours in a dead-end office job with unrestricted internet access, though I hope never to find myself in that kind of a job again.

[Zarjazzer]

they are fab, Tordelback cheers fro theat link. within a few minutes I'd died horribly several times in the house of horror and become a dwarf demon slayer only to join the forces of chaos! And I cut down some bushes in my garden! Er,  

[Emperor]

Ah I remember these well. I got The Warlock of Firetop Mountain when it came out and remember obsessively playing it in every spare moment and drawing maps and hoovered up a dozen or so of the others when they came out but my interest waned. However, I still have the books tucked away along with the Titan: The Fighting Fantasy World book. Digging through a box of old comics a few months back I stumbled across a number of copies of the Fighting Fantasy magazine too.

[mygrimmbrother]

I had the Warlock of Firetop Mountain boardgame, and played the shit out of it. I remember my best mate's mum taking the piss out of me because they had all the latest computers and such, and I would turn up with a boardgame tucked under my arm.

Had about 20 of the FF gamebooks, and used to love em too. They all went to charity earlier this year when I had to clear out my mum's old house though. Anyone remember (I think it was called) Creature of Chaos - at the beginning you wake up as a ravening furry beastie with no memory of what went before. Could NEVER finish this one, it always ended badly for me - a bit like the first Silent Hill game.

Happy memories.

[vzzbux]

Mentioned in a previous thread.  been meaning to dig these out of my mums attic.
Me and my brother used to make maps out of them with hints to each possible ending. sad I know but.....






V

[SmallBlueThing]

I had all of the first twenty or so of these- and, as the OP said, they became almost obsessional. City of Thieves and the Sorcery series were my favourites (esp 'Khare- Cityport of Traps, if I remember right). They were beyond a "craze" at my school and everyone, even the hardest kids in the year, would be found at break, sitting in the corridors endlessly flipping pages. When news reports talk of things being the "latest craze" in schools, it's FF I always think of, and wonder if the new thing matches up to that fever.

What we used to do, bizarrely, is time them. It completely buggered the point of them, as books and s adventures, but we used to have competitions as to who could do them the fastest. If I remember, the rules were that you had to turn the pages, you had to skim the text to make your decision and you obviously automatically won all your battles. The record, from memory, was something like 45 seconds to complete Warlock of Firetop Mountain. We all thought that was cool- little fuckwits that we were.

It all died out as quickly as it arose- and I think the implementation of the 'SJ & IL PRESENTS' farming-out policy is what killed it. Whether they really were "not as good" or whether it was just a wave of kid-rebellion and nascant desire not to be exploited, I don't know, but we all stopped at basically the same time.

Latterly, I've been picking them up whenever I see them in second hand shops- always with the original covers, obviously- I wouldn't give you tuppence for the reprints. I now have about thirty, I think, but haven't PLAYED one since- what?- 1983?

While I have the Sorcery series, I'm still missing the Spellbook and slipcase... when I get THEM, then I might treat myself to an evening of battling monsters and not using dice.

Interestingly, my eldest discovered the new Doctor Who versions of these and is quite taken with them at present. I may introduce him to FF at some stage and see what he makes of them.

SBT

[uncle fester]

Anyone remember (I think it was called) Creature of Chaos - at the beginning you wake up as a ravening furry beastie with no memory of what went before. Could NEVER finish this one, it always ended badly for me - a bit like the first Silent Hill game.

That's what it was called! That was the last one I bought and I got nowhere fast trying to get through it. Very weird in comparison to the rest. (Yeah, never got the good ending on Silent Hill either!)

I do remember writing a couple of my own, once I'd figured out how to plan them first. The second book I did was a Judge Dredd rip-off and you spent your time running round as a rookie being shot at and generally trying to stay alive while the city went bananas. Naturally, Judge Death was at the end... It was a good use of blank school books, I thought.

[TordelBack]

I wrote half a dozen of the things, including the tedious Mines of Moria ("92. There are seventeen dead dwarves in this room, and five GOBLINS.  The goblins attack!"), but was only ever happy with my innovative Bog of Betrayal adventure, the first FF to be set in a mist-filled  peatland, where instead of tunnels you had to negociate treacherous paths through a bog!  On returning from the camping holiday where I had survived persistent rain by painstakingly writing and rewriting my epic, I discovered Scorpion Swamp had been released.  My hopes of a career in writing adventure books were dashed.  Didn't help that Scorpion Swamp was the worst FF ever.  

EDIT:  Just remembered that I typed my Mines of Moria disaster up in BASIC, complete with 'random' number generator - although you had to book-keep the fights yourself, obviously.

[Richmond Clements]

Interestingly, my eldest discovered the new Doctor Who versions of these

Ohhh, my two might be interested in these... I shall seek them out.

And  FFS guys- we're nerds- we've all tried writing our oen gamebook!

[uncle fester]

Interestingly, my eldest discovered the new Doctor Who versions of these

Ohhh, my two might be interested in these... I shall seek them out.

And  FFS guys- we're nerds- we've all tried writing our oen gamebook!

What? You mean I'm not special??  Well I was the only one to write one at my school. I thought that was enough...

[Trout]

After working my way through pretty much every FF book, I liked the Sorcery series, too. Wasn't there a trilogy called something like Way of the Tiger? It was martial arts stuff, of course, and you learned different skills.

I have a bag of these somewhere. My order of storage space accessibility runs as follows: spare-room-soon-to-be-the-baby's-room; the Hideous Box Room of Doom; Wasp-and-mouse-infested Loft of Bumped Heads; and the Black Hole of Round the Corner in the Cupboard Under The Stairs.

The FF-style books are somewhere in the darkest regions of Round the Corner. Oh well.

- Trout

[House of Usher]

Didn't help that Scorpion Swamp was the worst FF ever.

It was bad. Part of the problem (apart from the encounters being duff) was the cleverly devised non-linear plot structure, an innovaton a bit ahead of its time.