For the benefit of those who've never heard of them, Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks would consist of around 400 short numbered passages of text. Typically they would tell a Tolkien-like story, but the reader / player would be given options as to how they wanted the story to develop. This involved presenting a choice of numbered passages to read next.

There were also other rules, generally to do with rolling dice at appropriate moments: to determine the outcomes of fights, or the performance of difficult physical feats.

As a kid, I read several Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. Many years later, while teaching myself CGI programming, I remembered them and felt that Fighting Fantasy would make an interesting subject to practice on. As a programming exercise, I wrote the software featured on this website.

The idea is that the software should be able to drive any Fighting Fantasy Gamebook, so long as the rules don't deviate too far from the basic system. It's just a question of adapting the books into the correct format. I have done this with several amateur gamebooks, this website is the result.

Credits

The website design, the software and format of its associated files are mine, although I make use of the CGIC library which was written by Thomas Boutell.

CGIC, copyright 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 by Thomas Boutell and Boutell.Com, Inc.. Permission is granted to use CGIC in any application, commercial or noncommercial, at no cost. HOWEVER, this copyright paragraph must appear on a "credits" page accessible in the public online and offline documentation of the program. Modified versions of the CGIC library should not be distributed without the attachment of a clear statement regarding the author of the modifications, and this notice may in no case be removed. Modifications may also be submitted to the author for inclusion in the main CGIC distribution.

The featured gamebooks, in their original form, were written by Jeff Sinasac, Philip Sadler, Gavin Mitchell, Andrew Wright, Hugh Eldred-Grigg, Steven Taylor, Gaetano Abbondanza, Simon Osborne, Davy Stedham, Al Sander, Kieran Coghlan, Ulysses Ai, Victor Cheng, Stuart Lloyd, Ramsay Duff, Alec Worley, J.P. Smith, Zachary Carango, Simon Christopher Chapman, Robert Douglas, Stacey Paulson, Tammy Badowski, Alessandro Viola, Cian Gill and Richard Evans.

The artwork is taken mainly, but not exclusively, from the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks themselves. Featured artists include Martin McKenna, Russ Nicholson, Iain McCaig, Terry Oakes, Tim Sell, John Blanche, Duncan Smith, John Sibbick, Brian Williams, Gary Ward, Edward Crosby, Tony Hough, Les Edwards, Dave Gallagher, Dave Carson, Matthew Jeffery, Geoffrey Senior, Julek Heller, Mark Dunn, Julius Lee, Ulysses Ai, Dave Holt, Diogo Pereira, Susanna (znodden), Peter Balogh, Miguel Opazo, Damon Hellandbrand, Zeppin and David Alexander Smith. All illustrations are copyright © the individual artists.

And of course the whole Fighting Fantasy concept was devised by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.

Where possible, I have either obtained or am actively seeking permission from the known sources of the material on this website. If they, or anyone else objects to my inclusion of their work, I will of course remove it immediately.