Fighting Fantasy was created in the early 80s by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston, founders of Games Workshop. They looked like books but they were not novels. Instead they were choose your own adventures books, where instead of reading the pages in order you would be given a series of choices and depending on which you took you are directed to a numbered paragraph.
They also introduced a basic rpg system where you would use a dice to roll up your character. The main values were Skill, which was used to fight monsters and various other bad guys. You roll 2d6 and add your skill score and do the same for whomever you were fighting. Stamina was basically how much life you had. If your stamina was reduced to zero it was game over as you died. Last you had a luck score which allowed you to test your luck in combat or certain situations. I remember not really caring about luck as i would cheat and just say I was lucky!
Me and Fighting Fantasy
So as a young kid growing up in the late 80s i discovered Fighting Fantasy in the local library (do they still have libraries these days?). I was always into fantasy with games like Heroquest and Warhammer Fantasy so when I saw these books in the kids section I instantly checked some out (I think you were allowed to take 3 books at a time). I would then play them to death! We would go back to the library with friends who had other books and hand them back at the same time so we could get their ones straight away. The library only had so many though so i remember looking through the list of other gamebooks and never seeing them, they would take on an almost mythical quality. I even started writing my own ones, which of course were terrible!
The Plan
There are a few really good blogs about Fighting Fantasy out there but its been a long time since they were updated. I want to replicate some of these and play through the gamebooks and write about them here. I will go for the comedy approach though as I find those are the ones I enjoy the most. Here though are links to the other ones I think are great.
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| I have got the first 10! |
http://turnto400.blogspot.com/ - A brilliant funny take and the inspiration for this blog (last update September 2017)
http://ffreviewermalthusd.blogspot.com/ - Still active and a great resource for fighting fantasy, proper reviews as well!
Anyway I will play though these books and blog about how it went, hopefully it is vaguely amusing. First up is The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.
Good luck brave hero!
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