Ah, those were from the original series, right? You get to build, and run, an army in battle. Our first pick of non-Fighting Fantasy choose-your-own-adventure books is equally as ostentatious as Livingstone and Jacksons series. A world of adventure awaits you within every Fighting Fantasy adventure gamebook. It is the 10th in the series in the original Puffin series (ISBN -14-031831-3 . Number: 3 Its delightful to wage war in mass battles of nation-shattering proportions. The popularity of the series led to the creation of merchandise such as action figures, board games, role-playing game systems, magazines, novels and video games. The dungeon is indire need of proper architectural planning, and youll often find yourself looping back around on yourself, passing through the same corridors and booby traps multiple times as you build up a mental map of its dense interior. published 1995, avg rating 4.24 Collect clues of the supervillains locations and times of attack like any good detective, and disable but never kill your enemies or incur a penalty; after all, you are the good guy. It seems a bit mean-spirited to single out one particular Fighting Fantasy book for being contrived, but even at my tender age with an enthusiasm for vampires I recognised Vault Of The Vampire as a collection of generic vampire tropes, and Mortvania as the pseudo-Germanic Uberwald that it was. 618,990 ratings The Magic Quest took over a year to be accepted by Penguin Books, at which point the two creators devoted a further six months to expanding and improving upon their original design, resulting in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook. The Forest Of Doom was actually the first Fighting Fantasy book I read, I borrowed it from the local library (now probably a Tesco Express) thinking it was a book, yknow, the old fashioned sort of book where you turn pages sequentially like our parents used to, and instead was confronted with my very first game book, setting me on the path towards roleplaying, Warhammer, and eventually editing SciFiNow, so take that mum. Book 1 in the series is Fighting Fantasy Box Set: Gamebooks 1-8 (Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Citadel of Chaos, Deathtrap Dungeon, Creature of Havoc, City of Thieves. What if a choose-your-own-adventure book couldnt be completed? 201,002 ratings 119,006 ratings There hes met by a Jacob Rees-Mogg, lord-of-the-manor, type chap and his butler who well, strike a light, guv both turn out to be goat-hoofed Hell Demons who rule over a hoard of ghouls, ghosts and Satan worshippers. The first Fighting Fantasy book, and arguably the most memorable title in the series. For those after more persistent storytelling and rigorous world-building across several choose-your-own-adventures books, the Lone Wolf Saga is likely to please. The book had it all, magic, adventure, suspense, collecting treasure and artefacts and fighting monsters, great stuff. The birthplace for this entire, incredible range, and the beginning point for a lot of future dorks, who like myself would graduate to roleplaying, wargaming and fantasy literature, and a thrilling adventure in itself none of that is up for debate, and all of that justifies The Warlock Of Firetop Mountains place at number 2 in the list. Additionally, due to the secretive, cheating method of keeping tabs on the pages where previous decisions were made,Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstones gamebooksintroduced a different type of furtive, cheeky, four-finger shuffle to teenage boys (each finger holding a spot in the book). Having penned artworks for The Avengers, a Jethro Tull album, and Star Wars (he designed Darth Maul), its little surprise that McCaigs images are so vividly dense they warrant pausing over and admiring on each turn of the page. There are currently no announced plans to republish this book as part of the Scholastic series. For the main series of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks this was the second . Sometimes I got lucky, sometimes I didnt. Theres no villagers to save. No-one actually completed this all the way through without cheating, right? on Amazon.co.uk. These books are called ' You Are The Hero ' (Part 1 and 2) and I highly recommend them to any Fighting Fantasy reader. No? published 2007, avg rating 4.52 published 1990, avg rating 4.55 Are you kidding me? Year: 1986 But a lot of instakills are just because you made some seemly innocent choice and the author decided to just kill you off for making this choice without any chance of escape. Whereas other gamebooks embellished a scene from within the yellowing pages, City Of Thieves trumpeted its unique selling point loudly the chaotic city itself, Port Blacksand, my very first wretched hive of scum and villainy, long before I was exposed to Ankh-Morpork, Mos Eisely or New Crobuzon. The game is as close to a solitaire RPG in paperback form that youre ever likely to find. Still, from the books I have read, my favourite is FF10 House of Hell. 214,770 ratings My first memory of playing a Fighting Fantasy book was back in 1983 with The Forest of Doom (number 3 in the original series, or FF3 for short). Below is a table of my collection, which edition I have and the condition the book is in. The very first paragraph sees you face off against a cackling skeleton in a hanging gibbet or a maggoty scarecrow. 135,458 ratings Chief among the genre was the Fighting Fantasy series. The reason being, the Dragon Cover format started at FF25, Beneath Nightmare Castle, and many Fighting Fantasy fans had already got an early printed edition of the book in the original green cover design, which meant they werent many FF1 to FF24 Dragon Cover Format sold in comparison. published 2015, avg rating 4.43 Quick review of the original green spines series of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks numbers 1 to 10 from Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone Yes, yes, OK,that kingdom was called Analand. Sounds familiar doesnt it? was its Lord Of The Rings. This was the first time Wizard Books had reprinted works by "secondary" authors from the original range. 611,685 ratings But you do have to eat a lot of hobbits to get to the good place. The book had two working titles, Crypt of the Necromancer and The Howling Tunnels. {"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. "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. published 2015, avg rating 4.30 published 1955, avg rating 4.47 This new title accompanied a re-branding of the range with a new cover layout and numbering of the books, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, The Citadel of Chaos and Deathtrap Dungeon being reissued alongside the new title. A hard fight is so much better won. Thats the idea behind UFO 54-40. miniseries, all entries in the series are stand-alone and do not assume any prior knowledge on the part of the player. Additionally, a range of "junior" adventures under the banner of the Adventures of Goldhawk were published. Puffin Books originally thought the book wouldnt be successful, but the authors of the book, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone proved them wrong and The Warlock of Firetop Mountain went on to be a massive success, was reprinted 20 times in a year, and the rest is history as they say. ), House Of Hell was a disconcerting departure from the traditional Fighting Fantasy setting in that while they were all varied, they were all clearly somewhere else forests where dwarves die in your arms, and planets where dinosaurs must be punched to death by Autobots. These books are called You Are The Hero (Part 1 and 2) and I highly recommend them to any Fighting Fantasy reader. spin-off. 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! Between 1982 and 1995, a total of 59 books were published, with various spin-offs like the Sorcery! published 2016, avg rating 4.62 216,045 ratings Welcome back. The two sets of illustrations are always drawn by the same artist. Its funny, charming, lovingly illustrated, and doesnt take itself at all seriously. The sainted Warlock Of Firetop Mountain only at number 2, farting full in the face of consensus and received wisdom. the villains and NPC's" found throughout the Fighting Fantasy series. For each supervillain halted and nefarious scheme spoilt, youll be rewarded a point to mark your heroic endeavours. If you want to go right, turn to page 267. Remember them now? No choices in the book lead to that page, and it even mocks you having to cheat to access the ending. It featured a miniature gamebook adventure in every issue, as well as new monsters, rules, reviews and comic strips. The Forces of Chaos are at large across Allansia and it seems that they are all pitted against YOU! 71,008 ratings Another spectacular Iain McCaig cover (with a rather Darth Maul-like horned Zanbar Bone, hmmm? The image of a four-faced demon emerging towards you with a human skeleton pulled halfway through a mirror beside it is up there with anything from Stephen Kings imagination. The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was the first book in the Fighting Fantasy series to be published by Puffin Books in 1982 with a very limited print run. It forms part of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy series. You may be thinking, why didnt you check the photos of the auction?. 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. The Wizard editions have also been criticized for the extensive errors in the rule section of the reprints. published 2008, avg rating 4.12 published 2009, avg rating 4.32 You play a Demon Stalker out to seek revenge on a Demon Lord who has kidnapped your parents. 2019 repeated this with more reprints and a third original title, Assassins of Allansia before a forth title in 2020, this time Crystal of Storms by Rhianna Pratchett. We also use to play Fighting Fantasy in the playground/schoolyard as it was that popular (I always played a wizard). Year: 1983 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. Number: 38 published 1998, avg rating 4.33 Personally, I really do love the trickier ones. published 2015, avg rating 3.89 He helped launch the new Wargamer, and is now a news writer at TechRadarGaming - with other words at TechRadar, GamesIndustry.biz, Clash, and The Telegraph. published 1996, avg rating 4.15 published 1956, avg rating 4.23 Hardest Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks? I definitely had to draw a map, especially when I passed a minotaur for the eighth time and if proof were needed that its not just me and my misfiring brain, the internets full of helpful maps. With the launch of the latest in the series, heres a countdown of the ten best Fighting Fantasy tales told to date. Books FF51, Island of the Undead, to FF59, Curse of the Mummy, were very difficult to obtain due to their rarity because of their limited print run. A series of over 30 gamebooks set in a single fictional world, it started as a passion project spun from a homebrew D&D campaign and traces a warrior monks quest across the world of Magnamund, fighting forces of evil in his many adventures. Considering the books were released for a price of 3.99, Revenge of the Vampire cost me 48 and Curse of the Mummy cost me 36 (if memory serves). It kind of spirals into darkness from there. I stopped playing the books correctly because I was more interested in the story of the adventure and if I were to die because of combat or bad luck, why restart the whole book again for only to take the same decision path as before? There are many certain artefacts and items that must be collected in order to be successful. Due to its overall success, the early Fighting Fantasy books were reprinted many many times over its lifespan and the cover design was also changed. Vault of the Vampire on Amazon.co.uk. 164,670 ratings They didnt appear for auction that often, especially in very good condition or better and when they did, they went for stupid money. To mark the 40th anniversary in 2022, it was announced that two new titles would be published, one each from Ian Livingstone (Shadow of the Giants) and Steve Jackson (Secrets of Salamonis). It consisted of 8 fairy tale stories.The sisters were amazed,as a character,especially Cinderella. To Be or Not To Be is a branching narrative adaptation of Shakespeares Hamlet, with all the vengeful murder, plotting, and insanity of the classic play, wrapped up in totally irreverent and silly jokes. 104,098 ratings This article is about my memories of the franchise and about my experiences collecting the series. 1,466 ratings flag All Votes Add Books To This List Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next Also, as Fighting Fantasy books were becoming collectable at the time, this made them more expensive. Well before I was even remotely conscious of comic-book cliche and archetype, and probably well before Id even read my first superhero comic, Appointment With F.E.A.R. Number: 22 Titan consists of three continents: the one most commonly used in the series is Allansia, followed by the Old World and then Khul. The most successful of which was Steve Jackson's Sorcery! In the two-player game each of the readers would from time to time be instructed by the book to make a note on a shared piece of paper as they made decisions, which could influence what happened to the other player as his book instructed him to respond accordingly. Starship Traveller on Amazon.co.uk. If you try to escape the ship, youll find yourself halted by the alien crew, consigned to some torturous space death, or swatted from existence and time. 232,654 ratings 2,619 ratings 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). In addition a further new title was published (Bloodbones). published 2011, avg rating 3.97 It was not reproduced for the Wizard edition. published 2004, avg rating 4.25 Caverns of the Snow Witch was one I found very hard - way too many high skill mandatory fights, skill/luck checks, and a shopping list of items needed if you wanted to get anywhere. published 2006, avg rating 4.44 The adventure ends up being the classic escape from the haunted house but the book is considered by many fans to be one of the hardest books to complete as death is more or less around every corner. published 2008, avg rating 4.75 Copying and pasting from Firetop Mountain has introduced errors into the rules, in most cases affecting the rules for Provisions and Potions. Author: Steve Jackson I talked a little about it the other day, but if you don't know, the Fighting Fantasy books are . Take a look for yourself. 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