199,006 ratings Later books sometimes varied this formula, allowing multiple routes to success. "Fighting Fantasy co-founders pen two new books for series' 40th anniversary", Fighting Fantasy: An Illustrated Bibliography, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Fighting_Fantasy_gamebooks&oldid=1118794926, Carl Sargent (credited to Ian Livingstone), This page was last edited on 28 October 2022, at 23:17. 819,447 ratings In 1984 Jackson produced a guide to multi-player role-playing using the Fighting Fantasy system and world, a volume simply titled Fighting Fantasy - The Introductory Role-Playing Game. SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL: http://bit.ly/YTSUBScribeCheck out more of my vids in the PLAYLISTS below. 119,006 ratings Author: Ian Livingstone The Fighting Fantasy book series by multiple authors includes books The Warlock of Firetop . series and Fighting Fantasy novels. By Lafe Travis I consider The House of Hell to be one of the hardest Fighting Fantasy book to solve, probably because of the numerous twists and turns of the (Creature of Havoc is much harder.) (shelved 11 times as hard-fantasy) avg rating 4.44 2,289,964 ratings published 1996. Like an inverse Breaking Bad, this starts off with your main character being evil aliteral monster, no less and ends up with them as a hero. Most of the early books in the series had 400 of these sections, with the optimal ending being number 400. 694,504 ratings Mixing choose your own adventure storytelling with dice-rolling combat, these are the best Fighting Fantasy books. Its funny, charming, lovingly illustrated, and doesnt take itself at all seriously. The main objective for the reader is to find his sword, the only weapon which will harm him, and then to find and defeat him. Sounds familiar doesnt it? Vault of the Vampire on Amazon.co.uk. miniseries, all entries in the series are stand-alone and do not assume any prior knowledge on the part of the player. 71,008 ratings Ah, those were from the original series, right? For over a decade, I was unable to escape from the house. Although not the first books to use this format, Fighting Fantasy popularised the format and spawned dozens of imitators. published 2011, avg rating 4.65 Year: 1986 I compiled a table that shows for each book the number of decisions ending in death and the number of possible endings: The deadliest adventure is Siege of Sardath! If youre a kid of the 1980s like myself, the chances are you may have played a few Fighting Fantasy books, you do remember those dont you? Of course, my definition/expectation of very good condition differed massively from other eBay sellers and there were a few times whereby I received a very good condition book for only it to go to the charity shop because it clearly wasnt. Simply and subjectively though, its just not my favourite its a dungeon bash, and an illogically laid out dungeon at that, with a labyrinthine second half that I dont think I ever managed to get through without cheating and just skipping on ahead. So, fast forward to around 2003, with the explosion of the online auction website eBay and a full-time job wage package in my back pocket, I decided to recollect the original Fighting Fantasy book series, all 59 books (I thought it would be the perfect way to increase my eBay rating as well). Unfortunately at the time of collecting, I didnt realise there were two types of Dragon Cover Format: Bronze and Black. Yes, yes, OK,that kingdom was called Analand. Many series would attempt to emulate the Fighting Fantasy style, with varying degrees of success: Joe Dever's Lone Wolf series enjoyed success nearly equal to that of Fighting Fantasy. The phrase "Fighting Fantasy" is sometimes used to refer to all single-player role-playing gamebooks, most notably in item descriptions on eBay, where such gamebooks are regularly sold. Its a lawless place where villainous nomads rule the highways, and innocent survivors huddle for protection in isolated settlements. Deeply unsettling from the (30-page intro) outset, Creature Of Havoc has you take on the role of a misunderstood and automatically reviled Frankensteins monster-like being, capable of smashing flimsy mortals with one blow and yet ultimately only wanting a cuddle. British writers Steve Jackson (not to be confused with the US-based game designer of the same name) and Ian Livingstone, co-founders of Games Workshop, authored the first seven books in the series, after which point the writing stable was expanded. Another entry from Stephen Hand, this featured a brilliant recurring masked, seemingly invincible, adversary called Conrad. It did get confusing on where you were going and where you had been, so in the end, I made a map! As the first in the series, and a classic in its own right, selling two-million copies worldwide, it goes on the list by default. Copyright 1998 - now michaeloglesby.comAll relevant media used on this website are subject to copyright to their respective owners, I use relevant media under Fair Usage.All rights reserved Trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.Privacy and Cookies Policy. 2007 saw the release of the third new title in as many years, Howl of the Werewolf by Jonathan Green, alongside two of his titles from the original run (Curse of the Mummy and Spellbreaker). I like challenges but I hate instakills. The series distinguished itself by featuring a fantasy role-playing element, with the caption on each cover claiming each title was "a Fighting Fantasy gamebook in which YOU are the hero!" It is assumed, since you start with no skill penalties, that you begin the adventure with the standard sword, leather armour, and backpack. The equipment list is missing which may be an error. Fighting Fantasy is a series of single-player fantasy roleplay gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The series was slated to conclude with book 50, Return to Firetop Mountain (Livingstone, 1992), but this book was unexpectedly successful, experiencing better sales than any recent gamebook and prompting an increase in demand for the Fighting Fantasy back catalogue. The range was planned to continue in 2008 with a further titles, although nothing was eventually published. Part 1. published 2010, avg rating 4.38 An evil Shadow Demon has awoken, and threatens to cut short the life of everything he catches sight of with his monstrous army of the undead. Want to Read. published 1987, avg rating 4.27 The opening paragraph sees the player given a Healing Potion by Gereth Yaztromo which has five doses which restore four stamina points each dose.[2]. And the latest book, the charmingly titled The Gates Of Death, isout on 5 April. I did get lucky on the last nine as the majority are in very good condition, but sadly, I got unlucky on FF58, Revenge of the Vampire; its in a state where I would class it as good condition, but due to its rarity and price, I doubt Ill ever get a near mint copy. With 9 million active players worldwide, I wonder how many of them grew up playing the Fighting Fantasy books? 292,737 ratings 108,655 ratings published 2017, avg rating 4.21 These problems have continued in the more recent re-releases as number 24, Talisman of Death, also has these errors. I suppose instakills are okay if the choice you have to make in order to be instakilled is stupid. Titan and Out of the Pit, were republished in 1989 in trade paperback sized books to match. and Allansia, all by Gascoigne and Pete Tamlyn; Out of the Pit and Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World were subsumed into the range as sourcebooks and reissued in reformatted, companion editions. Follow this link to buy all your PC and Console games from and find out how you get the latest games FREE! I talked a little about it the other day, but if you don't know, the Fighting Fantasy books are . Anybody who has ever played an FF gamebook, will be familiar with the urge to cheat, to skip ahead a few pages and see if your choice was the correct one (your character using suffering a gruesome death in the process) . One of the few Fighting Fantasy books to be set on Earth, this finds our adventurer driving home in a horrendous storm and unable to find a Travel Inn for the night. The series went proper Hammer Horror with the first of Stephen Hands FF gamebooks (although this was co-authored with Jim Bambra). Originally published by Puffin Books, then by Wizard Books who took over the license in 2002, and now by Scholastic Books who took up the licence in 2017. In addition to these, a small minority of Fighting Fantasy books employ a science fiction setting. Revisit the grim and unforgiving City Of Thieves on iPad/iPhone. The collection took me the best part of three years to collect and at some considerable cost (explained later). Whatever, you obviously chose the flying superpower. That said, many of them take place in a single world known as Titan, and the three books which deal with the wizard Zagor, (namely The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Return to Firetop Mountain and Legend of Zagor), are undoubtedly more rewarding if played in sequence, as are the books Deathtrap Dungeon, Trial of Champions and Armies of Death. Needless to say Ravenloft was my favourite Dungeons & Dragons setting, and Vault Of The Vampire placed me like a stake through the heart of my own Dracula story, one I didnt have to share with a reedy Jonathan Harker and one that wasnt written as a collection of insipid letters and journal enteries. Eureka! It was a fully free-roaming experience! Its the first and so far only Fighting Fantasy novel set in our world, and reading it as a child it struck me as a bizarrely voyeuristic experience, almost as if I thought there was a real danger of being pulled into the book and forced to make my own way out. Thats because the real happy ending isnt even accessible. Michael used to play the MMORPG game World of Warcraft. To commemorate the event, Wizard Books published a new twenty-fifth anniversary special edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (in August) that used the original wrap-around cover image and contained extra material. published 2015, A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1), A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4), The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1), Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2), A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2), A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5), The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2), The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1), The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1), A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3), The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #1), The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1), Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1), The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1), The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3), The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2), The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle, #1), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Hogwarts Library), The Chronicles of Narnia (Chronicles of Narnia, #1-7), The Slow Regard of Silent Things (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2.5), Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #1), Free the Darkness (King's Dark Tidings, #1), GENERATIONAL WRITING & ACCENTS | Three Hearts and Three Lions | BFB Subgenre Reading Challenge. Be sure to ignore, dislike or flag spam on negative or hateful comments. and Games Workshop check out his blog for lots of old pictures, youll definitely recognise some. 22 February 2018 fighting_fantasy gamebooks rpgs reviews I got a small lot of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks in from eBay today and I cracked open the first one, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain to play over dinner (the girlfriend is out of town). Michael is a big fan of Fighting Fantasy. That same year Fighting Fantasy celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. At the end of the list, youll find some choose-your-own-adventure books outside of the Fighting Fantasy range for a little variety. 110,558 ratings Both had mandatory high skill fights if I remember correctly (the mummy and the monster - I think it was called the Kurakill or something? published 2015, avg rating 4.30 gamebooks and novels. {"cookieName":"wBounce","isAggressive":false,"isSitewide":true,"hesitation":"","openAnimation":false,"exitAnimation":false,"timer":"","sensitivity":"","cookieExpire":"","cookieDomain":"","autoFire":"","isAnalyticsEnabled":false}, Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, Appointment with F.E.A.R. Im currently playing as a Priest or Mage whereby I heal other players in the game or do serious damage to non-player characters. Number: 22 avg rating 4.47 You can play as one of three characters, the titular Hamlet, his lover Ophelia, or his dad although if you pick Hamlet Senior, youll be killed off in the first couple of pages, spending the rest of the book floating around as a ghost. Crypt of the Sorcerer suffered from similar issues, especially in the final fight - I think you got instakilled if you got hit twice in a row, so that fight pretty much required cheating since Razaak had such high skill. Because I grew up in a low-income family, I was unable to collect all of the Fighting Fantasy books at the time and when I moved out to go to University, the collection that I did have, was lost to the sands of time; I think my Mother gave them to a charity shop (I hope she did!). Robot Commando Author: Steve Jackson Number: 22 Year: 1986 Robot Commando on Amazon.co.uk Seriously bro, this house couldnt be more haunted why not just wait in the car for the AA van? Apart from Firetop Mountain, Deathtrap Dungeon is probably the series most well-known book. Jackson then produced the first book in the series with a science-fiction setting, Starship Traveller, and Livingstone the first with an urban setting, City of Thieves, as well as Deathtrap Dungeon and Island of the Lizard King. published 2015, avg rating 4.30 Circa 1986 this was basically theequivalentof printing a book cover showing Harry Potter firing Pokballs at Barack Obama only perhaps even more exciting because we kids of the day didnt have DeviantArt to act as a haven for imaginary (non-sexual) couplings. It is possible the Crystal's powers are drained when you face the Gargantis. This article is about my memories of the franchise and about my experiences collecting the series. Node Based Dungeon Design in Fighting Fantasy. Download Stephen Bishop The Heart Is So Willing song from the film The Money Pit. Which books were those? I know it's hard to believe now, but back then, that was something of a fantasy no-no. Deathtrap Dungeon on Amazon.co.uk. Number: 38 When I get enough nerve, I may do that. published 2008, avg rating 4.75 Still, from the books I have read, my favourite is FF10 House of Hell. published 2013, avg rating 4.25 The series enjoyed good sales all through the eighties, but experienced the same difficulties in the early nineties as the rest of the role-playing industry, brought on primarily by the increasing dominance of video games. You have to remember, this was the era before the Internet, where game consoles and computer games were primitive by design, so these books were a perfect form of escapism for its time. The cover isn't the best - sheer Tolkien-ism (ho ho) - but it's still compelling. published 2015, avg rating 3.89 The unapologetically subjective top 10 best Fighting Fantasy game books, from The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain, to City Of Thieves and Deathtrap Dungeon. Editors were variously Livingstone, Steve Williams and Gascoigne. Quick review of the original green spines series of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks numbers 1 to 10 from Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy and other gamebooks are seen as a primer or gateway to the RPG hobby for younger enthusiasts. published 1996, avg rating 4.15 A sequel to Trial of Champions, although bearing no narrative relation bar the main protagonists name, this gamebook doesnt simply hand you a character to control and fight through swarms of enemy combatants, but rather gives you command of entire legions of soldiers. The two most difficult books to collect, which were also the most expensive, were FF58, Revenge of the Vampire and FF59, Curse of the Mummy. Number: 3 What are your thoughts on the harder FF gamebooks? 611,685 ratings Hardest Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks? 232,654 ratings Where the page number would appear in an ordinary book, a Fighting Fantasy book gives the range of sections appearing on that page, much as some dictionaries do for the words listed on a page. series, which was published in from 1983 to 1985 and consists of The Shamutanti Hills, Khar - Cityport of Traps, The Seven Serpents and The Crown of Kings. I didnt want my collection to have a mosaic mismatch of cover designs, so I decided I wanted to have my collection to have the same front cover design so it looked consistent when laid out on the floor (its my OCD). Enough nerve, I wonder how many of them grew up playing the Fighting book. In order to be instakilled is stupid books the Warlock of Firetop this format, Fighting Fantasy popularised format. Read, my favourite is FF10 house of Hell was called Analand roleplay! 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